Delete a Firestore collection

Delete a Firestore collection and documents within.

Explore further

For detailed documentation that includes this code sample, see the following:

• Delete data from Cloud Firestore
• Delete documents and fields

Code sample

C#

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

private static async Task DeleteCollection(CollectionReference collectionReference, int batchSize)
{
    QuerySnapshot snapshot = await collectionReference.Limit(batchSize).GetSnapshotAsync();
    IReadOnlyList<DocumentSnapshot> documents = snapshot.Documents;
    while (documents.Count > 0)
    {
        foreach (DocumentSnapshot document in documents)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Deleting document {0}", document.Id);
            await document.Reference.DeleteAsync();
        }
        snapshot = await collectionReference.Limit(batchSize).GetSnapshotAsync();
        documents = snapshot.Documents;
    }
    Console.WriteLine("Finished deleting all documents from the collection.");
}

Go

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"io"

	"cloud.google.com/go/firestore"
	"google.golang.org/api/iterator"
)

func deleteCollection(w io.Writer, projectID, collectionName string,
	batchSize int) error {

	// Instantiate a client
	ctx := context.Background()
	client, err := firestore.NewClient(ctx, projectID)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	col := client.Collection(collectionName)
	bulkwriter := client.BulkWriter(ctx)

	for {
		// Get a batch of documents
		iter := col.Limit(batchSize).Documents(ctx)
		numDeleted := 0

		// Iterate through the documents, adding
		// a delete operation for each one to the BulkWriter.
		for {
			doc, err := iter.Next()
			if err == iterator.Done {
				break
			}
			if err != nil {
				return err
			}

			bulkwriter.Delete(doc.Ref)
			numDeleted++
		}

		// If there are no documents to delete,
		// the process is over.
		if numDeleted == 0 {
			bulkwriter.End()
			break
		}

		bulkwriter.Flush()
	}
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Deleted collection \"%s\"", collectionName)
	return nil
}

Java

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

/**
 * Delete a collection in batches to avoid out-of-memory errors. Batch size may be tuned based on
 * document size (atmost 1MB) and application requirements.
 */
void deleteCollection(CollectionReference collection, int batchSize) {
  try {
    // retrieve a small batch of documents to avoid out-of-memory errors
    ApiFuture<QuerySnapshot> future = collection.limit(batchSize).get();
    int deleted = 0;
    // future.get() blocks on document retrieval
    List<QueryDocumentSnapshot> documents = future.get().getDocuments();
    for (QueryDocumentSnapshot document : documents) {
      document.getReference().delete();
      ++deleted;
    }
    if (deleted >= batchSize) {
      // retrieve and delete another batch
      deleteCollection(collection, batchSize);
    }
  } catch (Exception e) {
    System.err.println("Error deleting collection : " + e.getMessage());
  }
}

Node.js

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

async function deleteCollection(db, collectionPath, batchSize) {
  const collectionRef = db.collection(collectionPath);
  const query = collectionRef.orderBy('__name__').limit(batchSize);

  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    deleteQueryBatch(db, query, resolve).catch(reject);
  });
}

async function deleteQueryBatch(db, query, resolve) {
  const snapshot = await query.get();

  const batchSize = snapshot.size;
  if (batchSize === 0) {
    // When there are no documents left, we are done
    resolve();
    return;
  }

  // Delete documents in a batch
  const batch = db.batch();
  snapshot.docs.forEach((doc) => {
    batch.delete(doc.ref);
  });
  await batch.commit();

  // Recurse on the next process tick, to avoid
  // exploding the stack.
  process.nextTick(() => {
    deleteQueryBatch(db, query, resolve);
  });
}

PHP

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

function data_delete_collection(string $projectId, string $collectionName, int $batchSize)
{
    // Create the Cloud Firestore client
    $db = new FirestoreClient([
        'projectId' => $projectId,
    ]);
    $collectionReference = $db->collection($collectionName);
    $documents = $collectionReference->limit($batchSize)->documents();
    while (!$documents->isEmpty()) {
        foreach ($documents as $document) {
            printf('Deleting document %s' . PHP_EOL, $document->id());
            $document->reference()->delete();
        }
        $documents = $collectionReference->limit($batchSize)->documents();
    }
}

Python

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

def delete_collection(coll_ref, batch_size):
    if batch_size == 0:
        return

    docs = coll_ref.list_documents(page_size=batch_size)
    deleted = 0

    for doc in docs:
        print(f"Deleting doc {doc.id} => {doc.get().to_dict()}")
        doc.delete()
        deleted = deleted + 1

    if deleted >= batch_size:
        return delete_collection(coll_ref, batch_size)

Ruby

To authenticate to Firestore, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.

cities_ref = firestore.col collection_path
query      = cities_ref

query.get do |document_snapshot|
  puts "Deleting document #{document_snapshot.document_id}."
  document_ref = document_snapshot.ref
  document_ref.delete
end

What's next

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