# What is the best way to delete document from a massive index? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [March 14, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-delete-document-from-a-massive-index/44362 "2016-03-14T19:38:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vikas\_gopal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vikas_gopal/32/47661_2.png) [@vikas\_gopal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vikas_gopal)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-delete-document-from-a-massive-index/44362/1 "2016-03-14T19:38:59Z")
Hi Experts, I got a requirement , I need to delete some documents from an existing index also i want to optimize the disk sapce after deletion, so experts are saying it is not recommended to delete document from huge index (I have 2 TB in size), so batter to reindex it .What I believe is re-indexing is useful when we want to change the mapping but here i want to delete documents . I do not know what is the best way to do this . Thanks VG ---
**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 4:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-delete-document-from-a-massive-index/44362/2 "2016-03-15T04:31:12Z")
The method you are using here is the recommended way - [Delete by query is not deleting documents from an Index](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/delete-by-query-is-not-deleting-documents-from-an-index/44360) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-is-the-best-way-to-delete-document-from-a-massive-index/44362/3 "2017-07-05T23:08:28Z")