# Delete an index

```shell curl theme={null}
PINECONE_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"

curl -i -X DELETE "https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/docs-example" \
  -H "Api-Key: $PINECONE_API_KEY" \
  -H "X-Pinecone-Api-Version: 2025-10"
```

`DELETE /indexes/{index_name}`

:::code-group
```bash title="cURL"
curl --request DELETE \
  --url https://api.pinecone.io/indexes/{index_name} \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'
```

```json title="401"
{
  "error": {
    "code": "QUOTA_EXCEEDED",
    "message": "The index exceeds the project quota of 5 pods by 2 pods. Upgrade your account or change the project settings to increase the quota."
  },
  "status": 429
}
```
:::

## Authorizations

- `Authorization` (header, string, required) — Bearer authentication header of the form `Bearer <token>`.

## Path Parameters

- `index_name` (path, string, required) — The name of the index to delete.

## Headers

- `X-Pinecone-Api-Version` (header, string, required) — Required date-based version header

## Response

- `202` — The request to delete the index has been accepted.
- `401` — Unauthorized. Possible causes: Invalid API key.
- `403` — Forbidden. Deletion protection enabled.
- `404` — Index not found.
- `412` — There is a pending collection created from this index.
- `500` — Internal server error.

## Related pages

- [List indexes](./database-2026-07-control-plane-list-indexes.md)
- [Create an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-create-index.md)
- [Create an index with integrated embedding](./database-2026-07-control-plane-create-for-model.md)
- [Describe an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-describe-index.md)
- [Delete an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-delete-index.md)
- [Configure an index](./database-2026-07-control-plane-configure-index.md)
- [Get index stats](./database-2026-07-data-plane-describeindexstats.md)
- [List indexes](./database-2026-04-control-plane-list-indexes.md)
- [Create an index](./database-2026-04-control-plane-create-index.md)
- [Create an index with integrated embedding](./database-2026-04-control-plane-create-for-model.md)

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