---
title: Delete an item and optionally, its children in a Push source
slug: '171'
canonical_url: https://docs.coveo.com/en/171/
collection: index-content
source_format: adoc
---
# Delete an item and optionally, its children in a Push source
:figure-caption!:

Use the `Delete an item and optionally its children` request only to delete one item, or an item and its children.
To maximize efficiency and comply with [API consumption limits](https://docs.coveo.com/en/63/), don't use this request repeatedly to delete many items in a Push source.
If this is what you need to do, you should either use:

* The [batch update requests](https://docs.coveo.com/en/90/).

* The [`Delete old items`](https://docs.coveo.com/en/131/) request.

**Sequence diagram illustrating the handling of a `Delete an item and optionally its children` Push API request (highlighted) as it progresses through the [Coveo indexing pipeline](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1893/).**
![Sequence diagram for DELETE documents request](https://docs.coveo.com/en/assets/images/index-content/delete-documents-sequence-diagram.svg)


## Request template

**US East region**
[%collapsible%open]
#### [source,http,subs=attributes]
```
DELETE https://api.cloud.coveo.com/push/v1/organizations/<MyOrganizationId>/sources/<MySourceId>/documents?deleteChildren=<true|false>&documentId=<MyItemURI> HTTP/1.1
​
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Bearer <MyAccessToken>
```
#### .Canada region
<details><summary>Details</summary>

[source,http,subs=attributes]
```
DELETE https://api-ca.cloud.coveo.com/push/v1/organizations/<MyOrganizationId>/sources/<MySourceId>/documents?deleteChildren=<true|false>&documentId=<MyItemURI> HTTP/1.1
​
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Bearer <MyAccessToken>
```

</details>

**Ireland region**
<details><summary>Details</summary>

[source,http,subs=attributes]
```
DELETE https://api-eu.cloud.coveo.com/push/v1/organizations/<MyOrganizationId>/sources/<MySourceId>/documents?deleteChildren=<true|false>&documentId=<MyItemURI> HTTP/1.1
​
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Bearer <MyAccessToken>
```

</details>

**Australia region**
<details><summary>Details</summary>

[source,http,subs=attributes]
```
DELETE https://api-au.cloud.coveo.com/push/v1/organizations/<MyOrganizationId>/sources/<MySourceId>/documents?deleteChildren=<true|false>&documentId=<MyItemURI> HTTP/1.1
​
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Bearer <MyAccessToken>
```

</details>

Request parameters:

**Parameters**
<details><summary>Details</summary>

In the request path:

* Replace `<MyOrganizationId>` with your [organization ID](https://docs.coveo.com/en/148/).
* Replace `<MySourceId>` with your Push [source's ID](https://docs.coveo.com/en/3390#copy-a-source-name-or-id).

In the query string:

* Set `deleteChildren` to `true` to delete all items whose URLs begin with `<MyItemURI>` + `/`.
For example, if `documentId` is set to `+file://folder+`, items `+file://folder/file1.txt+` and `+file://folder/subfolder/file2.txt+` would be deleted.

Set `deleteChildren` to `false` otherwise.

* Replace `<MyItemURI>` with the URL-encoded URI of the item to delete in the target Push source (for example, `file%3A%2F%2Ffolder%2FdummyItem.html`).

In the `Authorization` HTTP header:

* Replace `<MyAccessToken>` with a Push source API key that grants the [set of privileges required to push items](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1546#api-key) to your source.

</details>

Request body: None

Successful response: `202 Accepted`

A successful response (`202 Accepted`) indicates that the delete operation was successfully forwarded to the service and is now enqueued to be processed in the [Coveo indexing pipeline](https://docs.coveo.com/en/184/).
This doesn't imply that the item was successfully deleted in the target Push source.
See [About the Push API processing delay](https://docs.coveo.com/en/32/) for details.

> **Leading practice: Update the status of your Push source**
>
> If you set your Push source to an active status before, you should consider [setting it back to the `IDLE` status](https://docs.coveo.com/en/35/) once this request has successfully returned, assuming you have no more requests to perform as part of this content update.

## Sample request

The following example shows how to delete an item and its children.

```http
DELETE https://api.cloud.coveo.com/push/v1/organizations/mycoveocloudv2organizationg8tp8wu3/sources/mycoveocloudv2organizationg8tp8wu3-rp5rxzbdz753uhndklv2ztkfgy/documents?deleteChildren=true&documentId=file%3A%2F%2Ffolder%2F HTTP/1.1
​
Authorization: Bearer **********-****-****-****-************
Accept: application/json
```