Delete Entities

You can delete the entities that are no longer needed by filtering conditions or their primary keys.

Delete Entities by Filtering Conditions

When deleting multiple entities that share some attributes in a batch, you can use filter expressions. The example code below uses the in operator to bulk delete all Entities with their color field set to the values of red and green. You can also use other operators to construct filter expressions that meet your requirements. For more information about filter expressions, please refer to Metadata Filtering.

from pymilvus import MilvusClient

client = MilvusClient(
    uri="http://localhost:19530",
    token="root:Milvus"
)

res = client.delete(
    collection_name="quick_setup",
    # highlight-next-line
    filter="color in ['red_3314', 'purple_7392']"
)

print(res)

# Output
# {'delete_count': 2}

import io.milvus.v2.client.ConnectConfig;
import io.milvus.v2.client.MilvusClientV2;
import io.milvus.v2.service.vector.request.DeleteReq;
import io.milvus.v2.service.vector.response.DeleteResp;

ilvusClientV2 client = new MilvusClientV2(ConnectConfig.builder()
        .uri("http://localhost:19530")
        .token("root:Milvus")
        .build());

DeleteResp deleteResp = client.delete(DeleteReq.builder()
        .collectionName("quick_setup")
        .filter("color in ['red_3314', 'purple_7392']")
        .build());

const { MilvusClient, DataType } = require("@zilliz/milvus2-sdk-node")

const address = "http://localhost:19530";
const token = "root:Milvus";
const client = new MilvusClient({address, token});

// 7. Delete entities
res = await client.delete({
    collection_name: "quick_setup",
    // highlight-next-line
    filter: "color in ['red', 'green']"
})

console.log(res.delete_cnt)

// Output
// 
// 3
// 

export CLUSTER_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:19530"
export TOKEN="root:Milvus"

curl --request POST \
--url "${CLUSTER_ENDPOINT}/v2/vectordb/entities/delete" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
    "collectionName": "quick_setup",
    "filter": "color in [\"red_3314\", \"purple_7392\"]"
}'

Delete Entities by Primary Keys

In most cases, a primary key uniquely identifies an Entity. You can delete Entities by setting their primary keys in the delete request. The example code below demonstrates how to delete two entities with primary keys 18 and 19.

res = client.delete(
    collection_name="quick_setup",
    # highlight-next-line
    ids=[18, 19]
)

print(res)

# Output
# {'delete_count': 2}

import io.milvus.v2.service.vector.request.DeleteReq;
import io.milvus.v2.service.vector.response.DeleteResp;

import java.util.Arrays;


DeleteResp deleteResp = client.delete(DeleteReq.builder()
        .collectionName("quick_setup")
        .ids(Arrays.asList(18, 19))
        .build());

const { MilvusClient, DataType } = require("@zilliz/milvus2-sdk-node")

res = await client.delete({
    collection_name: "quick_setup",
    ids: [18, 19]
})

console.log(res.delete_cnt)

// Output
// 
// 2
// 

export CLUSTER_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:19530"
export TOKEN="root:Milvus"

curl --request POST \
--url "${CLUSTER_ENDPOINT}/v2/vectordb/entities/delete" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
    "collectionName": "quick_setup",
    "filter": "id in [18, 19]"
}'
## {"code":0,"cost":0,"data":{}}

Delete Entities from Partitions

You can also delete entities stored in specific partitions. The following code snippets assume that you have a partition named PartitionA in your collection.

res = client.delete(
    collection_name="quick_setup",
    ids=[18, 19],
    partition_name="partitionA"
)

print(res)

# Output
# {'delete_count': 2}

import io.milvus.v2.service.vector.request.DeleteReq;
import io.milvus.v2.service.vector.response.DeleteResp;

import java.util.Arrays;

DeleteResp deleteResp = client.delete(DeleteReq.builder()
        .collectionName("quick_setup")
        .ids(Arrays.asList(18, 19))
        .partitionName("partitionA")
        .build());

const { MilvusClient, DataType } = require("@zilliz/milvus2-sdk-node")

res = await client.delete({
    collection_name: "quick_setup",
    ids: [18, 19],
    partition_name: "partitionA"
})

console.log(res.delete_cnt)

// Output
// 
// 2
// 

export CLUSTER_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:19530"
export TOKEN="root:Milvus"

curl --request POST \
--url "${CLUSTER_ENDPOINT}/v2/vectordb/entities/delete" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
    "collectionName": "quick_setup",
    "partitionName": "partitionA",
    "filter": "id in [18, 19]"
}'

# {
#     "code": 0,
#     "cost": 0,
#     "data": {}
# }