# Using FROM option with delete by query
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [March 31, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925 "2020-03-31T17:36:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ninze](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ninze)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925/1 "2020-03-31T17:36:54Z")
Hi,
I want to keep a max of 1000 latest documents (notifications) for each user. In case the search finds much more than that, I am trying to use "delete by query" to delete excess documents for the user.
The docs for "[delete by query](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/docs-delete-by-query.html)" say that there is a `from` option:
> (Optional, integer) Starting document offset. Defaults to `0` .
Apparently this is a new feature, as I couldn't find anything related to this option in version 6.8.
I am using elasticsearch PHP client `deleteByQuery()` method with the following params:
```
{
"index": "user_notification",
"from": 1000,
"body": {
"query": {
"term": {
"receiver_id": 77
}
},
"sort": [
{
"timestamp": {
"order": "desc"
}
}
]
}
}
```
and elasticsearch status 400 with an error message:
```
Validation Failed:
1: using [from] is not allowed in a scroll context;
2: from is not supported in this context;
```
What am I doing wrong?
thanks!
---
### Author:  [@Mike.Barretta](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mike.Barretta)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925/2 "2020-04-01T16:03:07Z")
@ninze educated guess: have you tried moving `from` under `body`?
---
### Author:  [@ninze](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ninze)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925/3 "2020-04-01T17:07:27Z")
Yes, even though the docs say it is a query parameter, I tried moving it inside body and it didn't work any better 😉
---
### Author:  [@ninze](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ninze)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925/4 "2020-04-01T17:13:06Z")
Eventually I got the job done by searching for the 1000th document, then then deleting everything with an older timestamp. But that is 2 roundtrips instead of 1 and a bit more code 🙂 Would still be interested to find out why `from` option doesn't work.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-from-option-with-delete-by-query/225925/5 "2020-04-29T17:13:38Z")
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