_id field

_id field

Each document has an _id that uniquely identifies it, which is indexed so that documents can be looked up either with the GET API or the ids query. The _id can either be assigned at indexing time, or a unique _id can be generated by Elasticsearch. This field is not configurable in the mappings.

The value of the _id field is accessible in queries such as term, terms, match, and query_string.

  1. # Example documents
  2. PUT my-index-000001/_doc/1
  3. {
  4. "text": "Document with ID 1"
  5. }
  6. PUT my-index-000001/_doc/2?refresh=true
  7. {
  8. "text": "Document with ID 2"
  9. }
  10. GET my-index-000001/_search
  11. {
  12. "query": {
  13. "terms": {
  14. "_id": [ "1", "2" ]
  15. }
  16. }
  17. }

Querying on the _id field (also see the ids query)

The _id field is restricted from use in aggregations, sorting, and scripting. In case sorting or aggregating on the _id field is required, it is advised to duplicate the content of the _id field into another field that has doc_values enabled.

_id is limited to 512 bytes in size and larger values will be rejected.