Delete an index

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: 2026-07"

{
  "error": {
    "code": "FORBIDDEN",
    "message": "Deletion protection is enabled for this index. Disable deletion protection before retrying."
  },
  "status": 403
}

{
  "error": {
    "code": "NOT_FOUND",
    "message": "Index example-index not found."
  },
  "status": 404
}

{
  "error": {
    "code": "FAILED_PRECONDITION",
    "message": "Unable to delete an index. There are pending collections for this index: ['test-collection']"
  },
  "status": 412
}

{
  "error": {
    "code": "UNKNOWN",
    "message": "Internal server error"
  },
  "status": 500
}