CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsmongodbmongodb-query
Hexycode
Hexycode

Reputation: 458

Delete all documents in MongoDB collections in Mongo shell

I would like to delete all documents in all MongoDB collections. Is there a way to delete all documents in all collections.

I was using db.collection.remove({}) but it only removes all documents in one collection. Is there any command to do? I'm using NodeJS mostly, maybe there is a chance to use NodeJS to delete all documents in all collections?

Sorry if the question is dumb, just started working in MongoDB.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 7013

Answers (1)

whoami - fakeFaceTrueSoul
whoami - fakeFaceTrueSoul

Reputation: 17915

As already suggested - You can either use .dropDatabase() to drop entire database or .collection.drop() to drop a collection or if it's just to delete all documents in all collections then you need to iterate on list of collections and implement either .collection.remove() or .collection.deleteMany() or .findAndModify() without any filter in query condition.

To delete documents in each collection individually :

first list all collection names using .getCollectionNames() and then remove documents.

let colls = db.getCollectionNames() // Mongo shell can accept .Js Func's, if you've more collections you can use parallel as well
colls.forEach(eachColl => db[eachColl].remove({})) // or .deleteMany() or . findAndModify()

Doing this way, you'll still have the database and empty collections existing on MongoDB server. Maybe you can comeback after sometime check list of collections available or maybe rename few etc.

But if you just simply don't want to look at collection names that use to exist in any near future, go ahead with drop commands preferable drop database as you wanted to delete all docs from all collections - why it's preferred ? is because unlike SQL databases MongoDB automatically creates a database and a collection if you write a document for the first time to a collection in a DB. So in MongoDB you might not need to maintain databases with empty collections.

Assume you're querying on collection named girlfriend which is in mylife database - Let's say it's already deleted/missing/never existed then .find() would return [] empty array same like querying on empty collection on a DB - this is the advantage with MongoDB as it doesn't throw an error on mismatched names.

Upvotes: 1

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