collMod (database command)

Change Index Properties

To change index options, specify either the key pattern or name of the existing index options you want to change:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: <collection>,
   index: {
      keyPattern: <index_spec> | name: <index_name>,
      expireAfterSeconds: <number>,  // Set the TTL expiration threshold
      hidden: <boolean>,             // Change index visibility in the query planner
      prepareUnique: <boolean>,      // Reject new duplicate index entries
      unique: <boolean>              // Convert an index to a unique index
   },
   dryRun: <boolean>
} )

If the index does not exist, the command errors with the message "cannot find index <name|keyPattern> for ns <db.collection>".

index

The index option can change the following properties of an existing index:

Index Property	Description
expireAfterSeconds	The number of seconds that determines the expiration threshold of a TTL Collection. If successful, the command returns a document that contains: expireAfterSeconds_new, the new value for expireAfterSeconds expireAfterSeconds_old, the old value for expireAfterSeconds, if the index had a value for expireAfterSeconds before. Modifying the index option expireAfterSeconds resets the $indexStats for the index. If you use TTL indexes created before MongoDB 5.0, or if you want to sync data created in MongDB 5.0 with a pre-5.0 installation, see Indexes Configured Using NaN to avoid misconfiguration issues. The TTL index expireAfterSeconds value must be within 0 and 2147483647 inclusive.
hidden	A boolean that determines whether the index is hidden or not from the query planner. If the hidden value changes, the command returns a document that contains both the old and new values for the changed property: hidden_old and hidden_new. However, if the hidden value has not changed (i.e. hiding an already hidden index or unhiding an already unhidden index), the command omits the hidden_old and hidden_new fields from the output. To hide an index, you must have featureCompatibilityVersion set to 4.4 or greater. Modifying the index option hidden resets the $indexStats for the index if the value changes.
prepareUnique	A boolean that determines whether the index will accept new duplicate entries. New duplicate entries fail with DuplicateKey errors when prepareUnique is true. The resulting index can be converted to a unique index. To convert the index, use collMod with the unique option. If an existing index is updated so that prepareUnique is true, the index is not checked for pre-existing, duplicate index entries. New in version 6.0.
unique	A boolean that determines whether the index is unique. A value of false is not supported. When unique is true, collMod scans the keyPattern index for duplicates and then converts it to a unique index if there are no duplicate index entries. If duplicates are detected during the initial scan, collMod returns CannotConvertIndexToUnique and a list of conflicting documents. To convert an index with duplicate entries to a unique index, correct any reported conflicts and rerun collMod. To end a conversion, set prepareUnique to false. To see an example of how to convert a non-unique index to a unique index, see Convert an Existing Index to a Unique Index. New in version 6.0.

dryRun

Default value: false

Only used when index.unique is true.

Before you convert a non-unique index to a unique index, you can run the collMod command with dryRun: true. If you do, MongoDB checks the collection for duplicate keys and returns any violations.

Use dryRun: true to confirm that you can convert an index to be unique without any errors.

Validate Documents

validator

validator allows users to specify validation rules or expressions for a collection.

The validator option takes a document that specifies the validation rules or expressions. You can specify the expressions using the same operators as the query operators with the exception of $near, $nearSphere, $text, and $where.

Note

• Validation occurs during updates and inserts. Existing documents do not undergo validation checks until modification.

• You cannot specify a validator for collections in the admin, local, and config databases.

• You cannot specify a validator for system.* collections.

validationLevel

The validationLevel determines how strictly MongoDB applies the validation rules to existing documents during an update.

"off"

No validation for inserts or updates.

"strict"

Default Apply validation rules to all inserts and all updates.

"moderate"

Apply validation rules to inserts and to updates on existing valid documents. Do not apply rules to updates on existing invalid documents.

To see an example that uses validationLevel, see Specify Validation Level for Existing Documents.

validationAction

The validationAction option determines whether to error on invalid documents or just warn about the violations but allow invalid documents.

Important

Validation of documents only applies to those documents as determined by the validationLevel.

To see an example that uses validationAction, see Choose How to Handle Invalid Documents.

Modify Views

viewOn

The underlying source collection or view. The view definition is determined by applying the specified pipeline to this source.

Required if modifying a view on a MongoDB deployment that is running with access control.

pipeline

The aggregation pipeline that defines the view.

Note

A view definition pipeline cannot include the $out or the $merge stage. This restriction also applies to embedded pipelines, such as pipelines used in $lookup or $facet stages.

Required if modifying a view on a MongoDB deployment that is running with access control.

The view definition is public; i.e. db.getCollectionInfos() and explain operations on the view will include the pipeline that defines the view. As such, avoid referring directly to sensitive fields and values in view definitions.

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: "myView",
   viewOn: "activities",
   pipeline: [
     { $match: { status: "Q" } },
     { $project: { user: 1, date: 1, description: 1} } ]
} )

Modify Time Series Collections

expireAfterSeconds

Note

This is distinct from using the index option with the expireAfterSeconds property to change the expiration time for a TTL Collection.

To enable automatic document removal or modify the current expiration interval for a time series collection, change the expireAfterSeconds value:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: <collection>,
   expireAfterSeconds: <number> | "off"
} )

Set expireAfterSeconds to "off" to disable automatic removal, or a non-negative decimal number (>=0) to specify the number of seconds after which documents expire.

granularity

To modify the granularity of a time series collection, you can increase timeseries.granularity from a shorter unit of time to a longer one:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: "weather24h",
   timeseries: { granularity: "seconds" | "minutes" | "hours" }
} )

To update the custom bucketing fields bucketRoundingSeconds and bucketMaxSpanSeconds instead of granularity, include both custom fields in the collMod command and set them to the same value:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: "weather24h",
   timeseries: {
      bucketRoundingSeconds: 86400,
      bucketMaxSpanSeconds: 86400
   }
} )

You cannot decrease the granularity interval or the custom bucketing values.

Important

You cannot downgrade below MongoDB 6.3 if any time series collections explicitly specify the custom bucketing fields bucketMaxSpanSeconds and bucketRoundingSeconds. If possible, convert to the corresponding granularity. If you cannot, you must drop the collection before downgrading.

To convert a collection from custom bucketing to a granularity, value, both bucketMaxSpanSeconds and bucketRoundingSeconds must be less than or equal to the granularity equivalent:

granularity	bucketRoundingSeconds limit (inclusive)	bucketMaxSpanSeconds limit (inclusive)
seconds	60	3600
minutes	3600	86400
hours	86400	2592000

Tip

Set Granularity for Time Series Data

Resize a Capped Collection

Starting in MongoDB 6.0, you can resize a capped collection. To change a capped collection's maximum size in bytes, use the cappedSize option. To change the maximum number of documents in an existing capped collection, use the cappedMax option.

cappedSize

Specifies a new maximum size, in bytes, for a capped collection. cappedSize must be greater than 0 and less than 1e+15 (1 PB).

cappedMax

Specifies a new maximum number of documents in a capped collection. Setting cappedMax less than or equal to 0 implies no limit.

For example, the following command sets the maximum size of a capped collection to 100000 bytes and sets the maximum number of documents in the collection to 500:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: <collection>,
   cappedSize: 100000,
   cappedMax: 500
} )

Change Streams with Document Pre- and Post-Images

changeStreamPreAndPostImages

Starting in MongoDB 6.0, you can use change stream events to output the version of a document before and after changes (the document pre- and post-images):

• The pre-image is the document before it was replaced, updated, or deleted. There is no pre-image for an inserted document.

• The post-image is the document after it was inserted, replaced, or updated. There is no post-image for a deleted document.

• Enable changeStreamPreAndPostImages for a collection using db.createCollection(), create, or collMod. For example, when using the collMod command:

  db.runCommand( {
     collMod: <collection>,
     changeStreamPreAndPostImages: { enabled: true }
  } )

To use collMod to enable change stream pre- and post-images for a collection, use the changeStreamPreAndPostImages field:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: <collection>,
   changeStreamPreAndPostImages: { enabled: <boolean> }
} )

To enable change stream pre- and post-images for a collection, set changeStreamPreAndPostImages to true. For example:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: "orders",
   changeStreamPreAndPostImages: { enabled: true }
} )

To disable change stream pre- and post-images for a collection, set changeStreamPreAndPostImages to false. For example:

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: "orders",
   changeStreamPreAndPostImages: { enabled: false }
} )

Pre- and post-images are not available for a change stream event if the images were:

• Not enabled on the collection at the time of a document update or delete operation.

• Removed after the pre- and post-image retention time set in expireAfterSeconds.

  • The following example sets expireAfterSeconds to 100 seconds on an entire cluster:

    use admin
    db.runCommand( {
       setClusterParameter:
          { changeStreamOptions: {
             preAndPostImages: { expireAfterSeconds: 100 }
          } }
    } )

    Note

    The setClusterParameter command is not supported in MongoDB Atlas clusters. For information on Atlas support for all commands, see Unsupported Commands in Atlas.

  • The following example returns the current changeStreamOptions settings, including expireAfterSeconds:

    db.adminCommand( { getClusterParameter: "changeStreamOptions" } )

  • Setting expireAfterSeconds to off uses the default retention policy: pre- and post-images are retained until the corresponding change stream events are removed from the oplog.

  • If a change stream event is removed from the oplog, then the corresponding pre- and post-images are also deleted regardless of the expireAfterSeconds pre- and post-image retention time.

Additional considerations:

• Enabling pre- and post-images consumes storage space and adds processing time. Only enable pre- and post-images if you need them.

• Limit the change stream event size to less than 16 mebibytes. To limit the event size, you can:

  • Limit the document size to 8 megabytes. You can request pre- and post-images simultaneously in the change stream output if other change stream event fields like updateDescription are not large.

  • Request only post-images in the change stream output for documents up to 16 mebibytes if other change stream event fields like updateDescription are not large.

  • Request only pre-images in the change stream output for documents up to 16 mebibytes if:

    • document updates affect only a small fraction of the document structure or content, and

    • do not cause a replace change event. A replace event always includes the post-image.

• To request a pre-image, you set fullDocumentBeforeChange to required or whenAvailable in db.collection.watch(). To request a post-image, you set fullDocument using the same method.

• Pre-images are written to the config.system.preimages collection.

  • The config.system.preimages collection may become large. To limit the collection size, you can set expireAfterSeconds time for the pre-images as shown earlier.

  • Pre-images are removed asynchronously by a background process.

Attach Comment

comment

Optional. You can attach a comment to this command. The comment must be a top-level field and can be any valid BSON type. The comment that you specify appears alongside records of this command in the following locations:

• mongod log messages, in the attr.command.cursor.comment field.

• Database profiler output, in the command.comment field.

• currentOp output, in the command.comment field.

Write Concern

w

Optional. A document expressing the write concern of the collMod command.

Omit to use the default write concern.

Resource Locking

The collMod command obtains a collection lock on the specified collection for the duration of the operation.

Change Expiration Value for Indexes

The following example updates the expireAfterSeconds property of an existing TTL index { lastAccess: 1 } on a collection named user_log. The current expireAfterSeconds property for the index is set to 1800 seconds (or 30 minutes) and the example changes the value to 3600 seconds (or 60 minutes).

db.runCommand({
   collMod: "user_log",
   index: {
      keyPattern: { lastAccess: 1 },
      expireAfterSeconds: 3600
   }
})

If successful, the operation returns a document that includes both the old and new value for the changed property:

{ "expireAfterSeconds_old" : 1800, "expireAfterSeconds_new" : 3600, "ok" : 1 }

Hide an Index from the Query Planner

The following example hides an existing index on the orders collection. Specifically, the operation hides the index with the specification { shippedDate: 1 } from the query planner.

db.runCommand( {
   collMod: "orders",
   index: {
      keyPattern: { shippedDate: 1 },
      hidden: true
   }
} )

If successful, the operation returns a document that includes both the old and new value for the changed property:

{ "hidden_old" : false, "hidden_new" : true, "ok" : 1 }

To hide a text index, you must specify the index by name and not by keyPattern.