How to delete a field from a document in Mongoose

MongoDB provides the $unset operator that deletes a particular field from a document. If the field does not exist in the document, the $unset operator does nothing.

Here is an example:

const mongoose = require('mongoose')
const { Schema } = mongoose

const User = mongoose.model(
  'User',
  new Schema({
    name: String,
    role: String
  })
)

// Remove `Alex` role
await User.updateOne({ name: 'Alex' }, { $unset: { role: 1 } })

Alternatively, you can retrieve the document from the MongoDB collection, set the value of the field you want to delete to undefined and then save it. In Mongoose, setting a document field to undefined will send $unset command to MongoDB:

// Retrieve document
const user = await User.findOne({ name: 'Alex' })

// Delete role field
user.role = undefined

// Save changes
await user.save()

✌️ Like this article? Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also subscribe to RSS Feed.

You might also like...

Digital Ocean

The simplest cloud platform for developers & teams. Start with a $200 free credit.

Buy me a coffee ☕

If you enjoy reading my articles and want to help me out paying bills, please consider buying me a coffee ($5) or two ($10). I will be highly grateful to you ✌️

Enter the number of coffees below:

✨ Learn to build modern web applications using JavaScript and Spring Boot

I started this blog as a place to share everything I have learned in the last decade. I write about modern JavaScript, Node.js, Spring Boot, core Java, RESTful APIs, and all things web development.

The newsletter is sent every week and includes early access to clear, concise, and easy-to-follow tutorials, and other stuff I think you'd enjoy! No spam ever, unsubscribe at any time.