---
title: Long running delete by query task
description: Describes what AutoOps detects and surfaces with the Long running delete by query task insight: A delete-by-query task has exceeded your configured runtime threshold.
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/autoops-insights/elasticsearch/long_running_delete_by_query_task
products:
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise: Generally available
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# Long running delete by query task
A delete-by-query task has exceeded your configured runtime threshold. Delete by query scrolls matching documents and removes them in batches, keeping search contexts open for extended periods.
<note>
  For a complete list of insights, refer to [AutoOps insights](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/autoops-insights/elasticsearch).
</note>


## Insight details


| Field     | Value                                   |
|-----------|-----------------------------------------|
| Component | Elasticsearch                           |
| Severity  | Medium                                  |
| Scope     | Node                                    |
| Domains   | performance, indexing, stability, tasks |


## Customization settings

You can customize these settings to adjust when AutoOps detects this event and presents the insight. Refer to [AutoOps event settings](https://docs-demo.elastic.dev/docs/deploy-manage/monitor/autoops/ec-autoops-event-settings) for details.
The default customization settings are:

| Setting                                                | Type    | Default |
|--------------------------------------------------------|---------|---------|
| Long running delete by query task threshold in minutes | Integer | `60`    |


## Example: What you might see in AutoOps

The following is an example of what you might see when this insight is triggered. Real insights use live data and links from your deployment or cluster.

### Long running delete by query task


#### What was detected

There are 3 tasks that ran more than the 12 minutes threshold.
The longest task running start time was 2026-03-15T14:22:00 UTC time.
The longest task running time is 48 minutes.

#### Recommendations

<note>
  AutoOps shows different recommendations depending on how their conditions match your deployment or cluster.
</note>

<dropdown title="Improve long delete-by-query tasks">
  **Condition**: Shown when delete-by-query tasks are not cancellable.Use slicing to parallelize the task, narrow the query with filters to match fewer documents, and temporarily raise or turn off the refresh interval during the run. Review index mappings and analysis for optimization opportunities.
</dropdown>


#### Background and impact

Delete by query removes documents that match a query by scrolling the index and deleting matched documents in batches. The scroll context stays in memory until the task completes, and each batch refreshes the keep-alive timeout, so deletes on large indices can run for a long time.
Broad queries that match many documents, tombstone accumulation during concurrent indexing, and several delete-by-query tasks running together increase heap pressure and I/O on data nodes. Extended deletes during heavy ingest or search traffic can slow cluster operations on affected nodes.