How to Delete By Id in Mongoose

Nov 19, 2021

There is currently no method called deleteById() in mongoose. However, there is the deleteOne() method with takes a parameter, filter, which indicates which document to delete. Simply pass the _id as the filter and the document will be deleted.

const testSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    name: String
});

const Test = mongoose.model('Test', testSchema);

async function run() {
  const entry = await Test.create({ name: 'Masteringjs.io' });
  console.log(await Test.countDocuments({ _id: entry._id })); // 1

  // Delete the document by its _id
  await Test.deleteOne({ _id: entry._id });

  console.log(await Test.countDocuments({ _id: entry._id })); // 0
}

run();

Using an Instance Method

You could also make deleteById() a Mongoose static on your schema, which will make deleteById() a function on your model as shown below.

const testSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  name: String
});

testSchema.statics.deleteById = function(_id) {
  return this.deleteOne({ _id: _id })
};

const Test = mongoose.model('Test', testSchema);

async function run() {
  const entry = await Test.create({ name: 'Masteringjs' });
  console.log(await Test.countDocuments({ _id: entry._id })); // 1

  await Test.deleteById(entry._id);

  console.log(await Test.countDocuments({ _id: entry._id })); // 0  
}

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