# What happened to deleted indices, shards and replicas?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happened-to-deleted-indices-shards-and-replicas/161982>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [December 24, 2018, 8:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happened-to-deleted-indices-shards-and-replicas/161982 "2018-12-24T08:20:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![varun1992](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3da27b/32.png) [@varun1992](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/varun1992)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 2018, 8:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happened-to-deleted-indices-shards-and-replicas/161982/1 "2018-12-24T08:20:36Z")

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I had confusion about elasticsearch DELETE API. If I delete induces through DELETE API, what will happen to shards and replicas?

I have 3 data nodes, so will it delete data and free up the space? If not how to free up disk by removing indices and replicas that already deleted.

I want to delete indices older than 2 months to free up space automatically. How can I do that?

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![nikhil.k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@nikhil.k](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nikhil.k)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 2018, 8:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happened-to-deleted-indices-shards-and-replicas/161982/2 "2018-12-24T08:51:15Z")

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Hi @varun1992,

Once you delete the index from the elasticsearch cluster, its shards and replicas are also deleted.

Regards  
Nikhil Kapoor

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**Author:** ![varun1992](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3da27b/32.png) [@varun1992](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/varun1992)\
**Post date:** [December 25, 2018, 12:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happened-to-deleted-indices-shards-and-replicas/161982/3 "2018-12-25T12:40:51Z")

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thanks for help

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-happened-to-deleted-indices-shards-and-replicas/161982/4 "2019-01-22T12:40:52Z")

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