Delete Documents

Overview

In this guide, you can learn how to remove documents with the MongoDB Java driver.

You can remove documents by passing a query filter to the deleteOne(), deleteMany() or findOneAndDelete() methods.

The deleteOne() method deletes a single document. If the query filter matches more than one document, the method will remove the first occurrence of a match in the collection.

The deleteMany() method deletes all documents that match the query filter.

The findOneAndDelete() method atomically finds and deletes the first occurrence of a match in the collection.

To specify a collation or hint an index, use DeleteOptions as a second parameter to the deleteOne() and deleteMany() methods.

To specify a collation, hint an index, specify sort order, or specify a projection on the returned document, use FindOneAndDeleteOptions as the second parameter to the findOneAndDelete() method.

{ "_id": 1, "color": "red", "qty": 5 }
{ "_id": 2, "color": "purple", "qty": 8 }
{ "_id": 3, "color": "blue", "qty": 0 }
{ "_id": 4, "color": "white", "qty": 0 }
{ "_id": 5, "color": "yellow", "qty": 6 }
{ "_id": 6, "color": "pink", "qty": 0 }
{ "_id": 7, "color": "green", "qty": 0 }
{ "_id": 8, "color": "black", "qty": 8 }

Delete Many Documents

The paint store website displays all documents in the paint_inventory collection. To reduce customer confusion, the store wants to remove the colors that are out of stock.

To remove the out of stock colors, query the paint_inventory collection where the qty is 0 and pass the query to the deleteMany() method:

Bson filter = Filters.eq("qty", 0);
collection.deleteMany(filter);

The following shows the documents remaining in the paint_inventory collection:

 { "_id": 1, "color": "red", "qty": 5 }
 { "_id": 2, "color": "purple", "qty": 8 }
 { "_id": 5, "color": "yellow", "qty": 6 }
 { "_id": 8, "color": "black", "qty": 8 }

Delete a Document

The store is donating the remaining quantity of their yellow paint. This means that the qty for yellow is now 0 and we need to remove yellow from the collection.

To remove yellow, query the paint_inventory collection where the color is "yellow" and pass the query to the deleteOne() method:

Bson filter = Filters.eq("color", "yellow");
collection.deleteOne(filter);

The following shows the documents remaining in the paint_inventory collection:

 { "_id": 1, "color": "red", "qty": 5 }
 { "_id": 2, "color": "purple", "qty": 8 }
 { "_id": 8, "color": "black", "qty": 8 }

Find and Delete a Document

The store would like to raffle the remaining quantity of purple paint and remove purple from the paint_inventory collection.

To pick a color, query the paint_inventory collection where the color is "purple" and pass the query to the findOneAndDelete() method:

Bson filter = Filters.eq("color", "purple");
System.out.println(collection.findOneAndDelete(filter).toJson());

Unlike the other delete methods, findOneAndDelete() returns the deleted document:

 { "_id": 2, "color": "purple", "qty": 8 }

The following shows the documents remaining in the paint_inventory collection:

 { "_id": 1, "color": "red", "qty": 5 }
 { "_id": 8, "color": "black", "qty": 8 }

Delete Example: Full File

The following code is a complete, standalone file that performs a delete one operation and a delete many operation:

// Deletes documents from a collection by using the Java driver
package org.example;
import static com.mongodb.client.model.Filters.eq;
import org.bson.Document;
import org.bson.conversions.Bson;
import com.mongodb.MongoException;
import com.mongodb.client.MongoClient;
import com.mongodb.client.MongoClients;
import com.mongodb.client.MongoCollection;
import com.mongodb.client.MongoDatabase;
import com.mongodb.client.result.DeleteResult;
import static com.mongodb.client.model.Filters.lt;
public class Delete {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Replace the uri string with your MongoDB deployment's connection string
        String uri = "<connection string uri>";
          try (MongoClient mongoClient = MongoClients.create(uri)) {
            MongoDatabase database = mongoClient.getDatabase("sample_mflix");
            MongoCollection<Document> collection = database.getCollection("movies");
            Bson deleteOneQuery = eq("title", "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie");
            // Deletes the first document that has a "title" value of "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie"
            DeleteResult result = collection.deleteOne(deleteOneQuery);
            System.out.println("Deleted document count - delete one: " + result.getDeletedCount());
            Bson deleteManyQuery = lt("imdb.rating", 1.9);
            // Deletes all documents that have an "imdb.rating" value less than 1.9
            result = collection.deleteMany(deleteManyQuery);
            // Prints the number of deleted documents
            System.out.println("Deleted document count - delete many: " + result.getDeletedCount());
        }
    }
}

Deleted document count - query for one: 1
Deleted document count - unlimited query: 4

The queries in these examples use the eq() and lt() filters to query documents. For more information about filters, see the Filters Class API documentation.

Additional Information