How to bulk delete 20,000 documents of a specific type in Sanity?
Example query: *[ _type == 'users' ][0...999]
For bulk deleting 20,000 documents of a particular type in Sanity, here's the most efficient approach:
The Challenge
You're hitting two main limitations:
- 10,000 document limit per delete query - When using delete by query, you can only operate on up to 10,000 documents at a time
- Rate limits - 25 mutations/second per IP and max 100 concurrent mutations per dataset
Recommended Solution: Use the CLI Migration Tool
The Sanity CLI migration tool is specifically designed for this scenario and handles batching/rate limiting automatically:
npx sanity@latest migration create deleteUsersThen create a migration script:
import {defineMigration, at, unset} from 'sanity/migrate'
export default defineMigration({
title: 'Delete all users',
documentTypes: ['users'],
// This will delete all documents of type 'users'
filter: '_type == "users"',
migrate: {
document() {
// Return null to delete the document
return null
}
}
})Run with:
npx sanity migration run deleteUsersBenefits:
- Automatically batches mutations to avoid rate limits
- Built-in dry-run mode by default
- Shows progress and handles errors gracefully
- Can handle all 20,000 documents without manual pagination
Alternative: Paginated Delete Script
If you need more control, paginate by _id to work within the 10,000 document limit:
import {getCliClient} from 'sanity/cli'
const client = getCliClient()
async function deleteInBatches() {
let lastId = ''
let hasMore = true
while (hasMore) {
// Query max 10,000 docs at a time
const query = lastId
? `*[_type == "users" && _id > $lastId][0...10000]._id`
: `*[_type == "users"][0...10000]._id`
const ids = await client.fetch(query, {lastId})
if (ids.length === 0) {
hasMore = false
break
}
// Delete in transaction
const transaction = ids.reduce(
(tx, id) => tx.delete(id),
client.transaction()
)
await transaction.commit()
lastId = ids[ids.length - 1]
console.log(`Deleted ${ids.length} documents. Last ID: ${lastId}`)
// Optional: add delay to respect rate limits
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 1000))
}
}
deleteInBatches()Key Points
- The 10,000 document limit applies to delete-by-query operations specifically
- The migration tool is the recommended modern approach and handles all the complexity
- For manual scripts, paginate by
_id(not array slicing) for better performance - With 20,000 documents and rate limits, expect the full deletion to take a few minutes
The migration tool is definitely your best bet here - it's built exactly for this type of bulk operation and will handle the 20,000 documents efficiently without you having to worry about rate limits or batching logic.
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