cat indices API

Returns high-level information about indices in a cluster, including backing indices for data streams.

Request

GET /_cat/indices/<target>

GET /_cat/indices

Description

Use the cat indices API to get the following information for each index in a cluster:

  • Shard count
  • Document count
  • Deleted document count
  • Primary store size
  • Total store size of all shards, including shard replicas

These metrics are retrieved directly from Lucene, which Elasticsearch uses internally to power indexing and search. As a result, all document counts include hidden nested documents.

To get an accurate count of Elasticsearch documents, use the cat count or count APIs.

Path parameters

<target>

(Optional, string) Comma-separated list of data streams, indices, and index aliases used to limit the request. Wildcard expressions (*) are supported.

To target all data streams and indices in a cluster, omit this parameter or use _all or *.

Query parameters

bytes

(Optional, byte size units) Unit used to display byte values.

format

(Optional, string) Short version of the HTTP accept header. Valid values include JSON, YAML, etc.

h

(Optional, string) Comma-separated list of column names to display.

health

(Optional, string) Health status used to limit returned indices. Valid values are:

  • green
  • yellow
  • red

By default, the response includes indices of any health status.

help

(Optional, boolean) If true, the response includes help information. Defaults to false.

include_unloaded_segments

(Optional, boolean) If true, the response includes information from segments that are not loaded into memory. Defaults to false.

local

(Optional, boolean) If true, the request retrieves information from the local node only. Defaults to false, which means information is retrieved from the master node.

master_timeout

(Optional, time units) Specifies the period of time to wait for a connection to the master node. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. Defaults to 30s.

pri (primary shards)

(Optional, boolean) If true, the response only includes information from primary shards. Defaults to false.

s

(Optional, string) Comma-separated list of column names or column aliases used to sort the response.

time

(Optional, time units) Unit used to display time values.

v

(Optional, boolean) If true, the response includes column headings. Defaults to false.

expand_wildcards

(Optional, string) Controls what kind of indices that wildcard expressions can expand to. Multiple values are accepted when separated by a comma, as in open,hidden. Valid values are:

  • all

    Expand to open and closed indices, including hidden indices.

    open

    Expand only to open indices.

    closed

    Expand only to closed indices.

    hidden

    Expansion of wildcards will include hidden indices. Must be combined with open, closed, or both.

    none

    Wildcard expressions are not accepted.

Examples

  1. GET /_cat/indices/my-index-*?v&s=index

The API returns the following response:

  1. health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
  2. yellow open my-index-000001 u8FNjxh8Rfy_awN11oDKYQ 1 1 1200 0 88.1kb 88.1kb
  3. green open my-index-000002 nYFWZEO7TUiOjLQXBaYJpA 1 0 0 0 260b 260b