Delete data

Use the influx CLI or the InfluxDB API /api/v2/delete endpoint to delete data from an InfluxDB bucket.

• Delete data using the influx CLI
• Delete data using the API

InfluxDB Cloud supports deleting data by the following:

• time range
• measurement (_measurement)
• tag
• field (_field)

In InfluxDB Cloud, writes and deletes are asynchronous and eventually consistent. Once InfluxDB validates your request and queues the delete, it sends a success response (HTTP 204 status code) as an acknowledgement. To ensure that InfluxDB handles writes and deletes in the order you request them, wait for the acknowledgement before you send the next request. Once InfluxDB executes a queued delete, the deleted data is no longer queryable, but will remain on disk until the compaction service runs.

Delete data using the influx CLI

1. Use the influx delete command to delete points from InfluxDB.

2. Use the --bucket flag to specify which bucket to delete data from.

3. Use the --start and --stop flags to define the time range to delete data from. Use RFC3339 timestamps.

4. (Optional) Use the -p, --predicate flag to include a delete predicate that identifies which points to delete.

   Deleting data without a delete predicate deletes all data in the specified bucket with timestamps between the specified start and stop times.

Examples

• Delete points in a specific measurement with a specific tag value

• Delete all points in a specified time range

• Delete points for a specific field in a specified time range

Delete points in a specific measurement with a specific tag value

influx delete --bucket example-bucket \
  --start '1970-01-01T00:00:00Z' \
  --stop $(date -u +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ") \
  --predicate '_measurement="example-measurement" AND exampleTag="exampleTagValue"'

Delete all points in a specified time range

influx delete --bucket example-bucket \
  --start 2020-03-01T00:00:00Z \
  --stop 2020-11-14T00:00:00Z

Delete points for a specific field in a specified time range

influx delete --bucket example-bucket \
  --start 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z \
  --stop 2022-02-01T00:00:00Z \
  --predicate '_field="example-field"'

Delete data using the API

Use the InfluxDB API /api/v2/delete endpoint to delete points from InfluxDB.

POST http://localhost:8086/api/v2/delete

Include the following:

• Request method: POST
• Headers:
  • Authorization: Token schema with your InfluxDB API token
  • Content-type: application/json
• Query parameters:
  • org or orgID: organization name or organization ID
  • bucket or bucketID: bucket name or bucket ID
• Request body: JSON object with the following fields:
  * Required

  • * start: earliest time to delete data from (RFC3339)

  • * stop: latest time to delete data from (RFC3339)

  • predicate: delete predicate statement

    Deleting data without a delete predicate deletes all data in the specified bucket with timestamps between the specified start and stop times.

Examples

• Delete points in a specific measurement with a specific tag value

• Delete all points in a specified time range

• Delete points for a specific field in a specified time range

Delete points in a specific measurement with a specific tag value

curl --request POST http://localhost:8086/api/v2/delete?org=example-org&bucket=example-bucket \
  --header 'Authorization: Token YOUR_API_TOKEN' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "start": "2020-03-01T00:00:00Z",
    "stop": "2020-11-14T00:00:00Z",
    "predicate": "_measurement=\"example-measurement\" AND exampleTag=\"exampleTagValue\""
  }'

Delete all points in a specified time range

curl --request POST http://localhost:8086/api/v2/delete?org=example-org&bucket=example-bucket \
  --header 'Authorization: Token YOUR_API_TOKEN' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "start": "2020-03-01T00:00:00Z",
    "stop": "2020-11-14T00:00:00Z"
  }'

Delete points for a specific field in a specified time range

curl --request POST http://localhost:8086/api/v2/delete?org=example-org&bucket=example-bucket \
  --header 'Authorization: Token YOUR_API_TOKEN' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "start": "2022-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "stop": "2022-02-01T00:00:00Z",
    "predicate": "_field=\"example-field\""
  }'

For more information, see the /api/v2/delete endpoint documentation.

To delete a bucket see Delete a bucket.