# Why does the field docs.deleted count returns as zero in elasticsearch \_cat/indices API response? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [November 5, 2019, 7:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537 "2019-11-05T07:34:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Santu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/santu/32/45072_2.png) [@Santu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Santu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 7:34am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/1 "2019-11-05T07:34:07Z")
Hey, I am using elasticsearch 5.X version. and i have created an index along with some documents. POST /\_bulk { "index" : { "\_index" : "index-a", "\_type" : "type-a", "\_id" : "1" } } { "field" : "value1" } { "create" : { "\_index" : "index-a", "\_type" : "type-a", "\_id" : "2" } } and after that i have deleted 1 document from the above index. DELETE index-a/type-a/2 when i perform [http://localhost](http://localhost):xxxx/\_cat/indices?v then it returns me docs.deleted count as 0 (zero) ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/6/7/679d9e80b1b96d7648943c24c5644506bd3fcc98.png) why?. any suggestions on this would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 9:48am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/2 "2019-11-05T09:48:04Z")
Is it possible that you executed a force merge before testing this? ```auto POST /_bulk { "index" : { "_index" : "index-a", "_type" : "type-a", "_id" : "1" } } { "field" : "value1" } { "create" : { "_index" : "index-a", "_type" : "type-a", "_id" : "2" } } DELETE index-a/type-a/2 # shows deleted document GET /_cat/indices/index-a?v POST index-a/_flush?force # no more deleted document GET /_cat/indices/index-a?v ``` ---
**Author:** ![Santu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/santu/32/45072_2.png) [@Santu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Santu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 10:12am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/3 "2019-11-05T10:12:58Z")
Thanks @spinscale for response. No. but still the result is same before and after the force merge. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/6/7/672540e3d2bf6eeb134cfbec277c3c33f98d46dd.png) ---
**Author:** ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 10:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/4 "2019-11-05T10:17:33Z")
is there potentially another background process triggering this? Out of curiosity, why do you think this is a problem? ---
**Author:** ![Santu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/santu/32/45072_2.png) [@Santu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Santu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2019, 10:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/5 "2019-11-05T10:50:27Z")
exactly i'm not very sure if there is any other background process is preventing this from fetching the actual results. but i tested it on my local machine only. actually i'm expecting some docs deleted count for that index at index level. ---
**Author:** ![Santu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/santu/32/45072_2.png) [@Santu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Santu)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 7:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/6 "2019-11-06T07:17:41Z")
@spinscale, can you also please elaborate what does docs.deleted count means? ---
**Author:** ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2019, 8:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/7 "2019-11-06T08:56:58Z")
`docs.deleted` is the count of documents marked as deleted, which will be physically removed from disk at some point in the future when merging happens. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-does-the-field-docs-deleted-count-returns-as-zero-in-elasticsearch-cat-indices-api-response/206537/8 "2019-12-04T08:57:02Z")
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