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Refresh API

A refresh makes recent operations performed on one or more indices available for search. For data streams, the API runs the refresh operation on the stream’s backing indices. For more information about the refresh operation, see Near real-time search.

POST /my-index-000001/_refresh

Request

POST <target>/_refresh

GET <target>/_refresh

POST /_refresh

GET /_refresh

Prerequisites

If the Elasticsearch security features are enabled, you must have the maintenance or manage index privilege for the target data stream, index, or alias.

Description

Use the refresh API to explicitly make all operations performed on one or more indices since the last refresh available for search. If the request targets a data stream, it refreshes the stream’s backing indices.

By default, Elasticsearch periodically refreshes indices every second, but only on indices that have received one search request or more in the last 30 seconds. You can change this default interval using the index.refresh_interval setting.

Refresh requests are synchronous and do not return a response until the refresh operation completes.

Refreshes are resource-intensive. To ensure good cluster performance, we recommend waiting for Elasticsearch’s periodic refresh rather than performing an explicit refresh when possible.

If your application workflow indexes documents and then runs a search to retrieve the indexed document, we recommend using the index API's refresh=wait_for query parameter option. This option ensures the indexing operation waits for a periodic refresh before running the search.

Path parameters

<target>: (Optional, string) Comma-separated list of data streams, indices, and aliases used to limit the request. Supports wildcards (*). To target all data streams and indices, omit this parameter or use * or _all.

Query parameters

allow_no_indices

(Optional, Boolean) If false, the request returns an error if any wildcard expression, index alias, or _all value targets only missing or closed indices. This behavior applies even if the request targets other open indices. For example, a request targeting foo*,bar* returns an error if an index starts with foo but no index starts with bar.

Defaults to true.

expand_wildcards

(Optional, string) Type of index that wildcard patterns can match. If the request can target data streams, this argument determines whether wildcard expressions match hidden data streams. Supports comma-separated values, such as open,hidden. Valid values are:

all: Match any data stream or index, including hidden ones.
open: Match open, non-hidden indices. Also matches any non-hidden data stream.
closed: Match closed, non-hidden indices. Also matches any non-hidden data stream. Data streams cannot be closed.
hidden: Match hidden data streams and hidden indices. Must be combined with open, closed, or both.
none: Wildcard patterns are not accepted.

Defaults to open.

ignore_unavailable

(Optional, Boolean) If false, the request returns an error if it targets a missing or closed index. Defaults to false.

Examples

Refresh several data streams and indices

POST /my-index-000001,my-index-000002/_refresh

Refresh all data streams and indices in a cluster

POST /_refresh

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https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.17/indices-refresh.html