How can I drop index for _id field using Compass?

Working with Data Developer Tools
,
1

I can drop the newly created indexes, but there is no trashcan icon to delete the main index. Is there a way to do this in Compass? Or is this a shell only feature. MongoDB manual says “Click Drop to drop the index.” which doesn’t answer the question.

2

You can not remove this index…from the documentation:

Default _id Index

MongoDB creates a unique index on the _id field during the creation of a collection. The _id index prevents clients from inserting two documents with the same value for the _id field. You cannot drop this index on the _id field.

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3

Does that mean when you run the command .dropIndexes() in the shell, it also doesn’t drop the _id index? It seems like it does.

4

I just tested it on my local MongoDB instance (4.2.7)

> db.add.dropIndex({"_id": 1})
{
        "ok" : 0,
        "errmsg" : "cannot drop _id index",
        "code" : 72,
        "codeName" : "InvalidOptions"
}
> db.add.dropIndexes()
{
        "nIndexesWas" : 1,
        "msg" : "non-_id indexes dropped for collection",
        "ok" : 1
}
> db.add.getIndexes()
[
        {
                "v" : 2,
                "key" : {
                        "_id" : 1
                },
                "name" : "_id_",
                "ns" : "address.add"
        }
]

It drops all “non _id” indexes.

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5

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