How to delete multiple documents in Sanity?

There are several ways to delete multiple documents in Sanity, depending on your needs and where you're working:

Using the Sanity CLI (Recommended for bulk operations)

The Sanity CLI provides a bulk deletion command that's perfect for deleting many documents at once. Here's the basic syntax:

sanity documents query '*[_type == "myDocument"]' --apiVersion 2021-03-25 | groq "*" -o ndjson | xargs sanity documents delete

This queries for documents of a specific type and pipes them to the delete command. You can use any GROQ query to filter which documents to delete:

# Delete all drafts
sanity documents query '*[_id in path("drafts.**")]' --apiVersion 2021-03-25 | groq "*" -o ndjson | xargs sanity documents delete

# Delete documents with specific conditions
sanity documents query '*[_type == "post" && publishedAt < "2023-01-01"]' --apiVersion 2021-03-25 | groq "*" -o ndjson | xargs sanity documents delete

Tools needed:

• Sanity CLI: npm install -g @sanity/cli
• GROQ CLI: npm install -g groq-cli
• On Windows: Install FindUtils from GnuWin for the xargs command

Using the JavaScript Client

For programmatic deletion in your code, you can use the Sanity JavaScript client with transactions:

import {createClient} from '@sanity/client'

const client = createClient({
  projectId: 'your-project-id',
  dataset: 'your-dataset',
  token: 'your-token', // needs write permissions
  apiVersion: '2024-01-01',
  useCdn: false
})

// Query for document IDs you want to delete
const docsToDelete = await client.fetch('*[_type == "myDocument"]._id')

// Create a transaction to delete them
const transaction = client.transaction()
docsToDelete.forEach(id => {
  transaction.delete(id)
})

await transaction.commit()

Using sanity exec

You can also create a script and run it with sanity exec:

// delete-docs.js
import {getCliClient} from 'sanity/cli'

const client = getCliClient()

const query = '*[_type == "myDocument"]'
const docs = await client.fetch(query)

for (const doc of docs) {
  await client.delete(doc._id)
  console.log(`Deleted ${doc._id}`)
}

Then run it:

sanity exec delete-docs.js --with-user-token

Important notes:

• Always test your GROQ query first in the Vision plugin to make sure you're targeting the right documents
• Consider exporting your data before bulk deletions as a backup
• Remember that deleting documents is permanent and cannot be undone
• You'll need a token with write permissions for programmatic deletions
• With large batches (>50 documents), you may experience timeouts when deleting one-by-one

The CLI approach is generally the quickest and safest for one-time bulk operations, while the JavaScript client approach is better for automated workflows or application logic.