# Deleting batch uploaded documents
<a name="delete-batch-documents"></a>

You can delete documents directly from an index using the [BatchDeleteDocument](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kendra/latest/APIReference/API_BatchDeleteDocument.html) API. You can't delete documents directly using the console. If you use the console, you can either delete specific documents from your data source repository and re-sync with your index or delete the entire data source connector.

Deleting documents from an index using `BatchDeleteDocument` is an asynchronous operation. After you call the `BatchDeleteDocument` API, you use the [BatchGetDocumentStatus](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kendra/latest/APIReference/API_BatchGetDocumentStatus.html) API to monitor the progress of deleting your documents. When a document is deleted from the index, Amazon Kendra returns `NOT_FOUND` as the status.

**Note**  
Deleting documents from an index using `BatchDeleteDocument` could take up to an hour or more, depending on the number of documents you want to delete.

**To delete batch uploaded documents from an index (CLI)**
+ In the AWS Command Line Interface, use the following command. The command is formatted for Linux and macOS. If you are using Windows, replace the Unix line continuation character (\\) with a caret (^).

  ```
  aws kendra batch-delete-document \
     --index-id {{index-id}} \
     --document-id-list 'doc-id-1' 'doc-id-2'
  ```