MongoDB: Delete Documents in a Collection

MongoDB provides the following methods to delete one or more documents in a collection.

db.collection.deleteOne() - Deletes the first matching document in a collection.
db.collection.deleteMany() - Deletes all the matching documents in a collection.

db.collection.deleteOne()

Use the db.<collection>.deleteOne() method to delete the first documents that match with the specified filter criteria in a collection.

Syntax:

db.collection.deleteOne(filter, options)

Parameters:

filter: The selection criteria for the update, same as find() method.
options: Optional. May contains options for update behavior. It includes writeConcern, collation, and hint parameters.

In the above syntax, db points to the current database, <collection> points is an existing collection name.

To demonstrate the delete operation, insert the following sample documents in the employees collection.

Sample Data

db.employees.insertMany([ { _id:1, firstName: "John", lastName: "King", email: "[email protected]", salary: 5000 }, { _id:2, firstName: "Sachin", lastName: "T", email: "[email protected]", salary: 8000 }, { _id:3, firstName: "James", lastName: "Bond", email: "[email protected]", salary: 7500 }, { _id:4, firstName: "Steve", lastName: "J", email: "[email protected]", salary: 7000 }, { _id:5, firstName: "Kapil", lastName: "D", email: "[email protected]", salary: 4500 }, { _id:6, firstName: "Amitabh", lastName: "B", email: "[email protected]", salary: 7000 } ])

The following deletes a document from the employees collection.

Example: Delete Single Document using deleteOne()

db.employees.deleteOne({ salary:7000 })

Output

{ acknowledged: true, deletedCount: 1 }

The above command deletes the first matching document even if multiple documents match with the specified criteria.

deleteMany()

Use the db.<collection>.deleteMany() method to delete all the documents that match with the specified filter criteria in a collection.

Syntax:

db.collection.deleteMany(filter, options)

Parameters:

filter: The selection criteria for the update, same as find() method.
options: Optional. May contains options for update behavior. It includes writeConcern and collation, and hint parameters.

The following deletes all documents from the employees collection that match with the specified criteria.

Example: deleteMany()

db.employees.deleteMany({ salary:7000 })

Output

{ acknowledged: true, deletedCount: 2 }

The following deletes all documents where salary is less than 7000.

Example: deleteMany()

db.employees.deleteMany({ salary: { $lt:7000} })

Output

{ acknowledged: true, deletedCount: 2 }

If you specify an empty criteria then it will delete all documents in a collection.

Example: Delete All Documents

db.employees.deleteMany({ }) //deletes all documents

Output

{ acknowledged: true, deletedCount: 6 }