How to remove a field completely from a MongoDB document?

You can use $unset operator to remove a field completely from a MongoDb document. The syntax is as follows:

db.yourCollectionName.update({}, {$unset: {yourFieldName:1}}, false, true);

To understand the above syntax, let us create a collection with some documents. The query to create a collection with documents are as follows:

>
db.removeFieldCompletlyDemo.insertOne({"StudentName":"Larry","StudentFavouriteSubject":
["Java","C","C++","Python"]});
{
   "acknowledged" : true,
   "insertedId" : ObjectId("5c6ef55a6fd07954a48906a3")
}
>
db.removeFieldCompletlyDemo.insertOne({"StudentName":"Mike","StudentFavouriteSubject":
["Javascript","HTML5","CSS3"]});
{
   "acknowledged" : true,
   "insertedId" : ObjectId("5c6ef57b6fd07954a48906a4")
}
>
db.removeFieldCompletlyDemo.insertOne({"StudentName":"Sam","StudentFavouriteSubject":
["MongoDB","MySQL","SQL Server"]});
{
   "acknowledged" : true,
   "insertedId" : ObjectId("5c6ef59c6fd07954a48906a5")
}

Display all documents from a collection with the help of find() method. The query is as follows:

> db.removeFieldCompletlyDemo.find().pretty();

The following is the output:

{
   "_id" : ObjectId("5c6ef55a6fd07954a48906a3"),
   "StudentName" : "Larry",
   "StudentFavouriteSubject" : [
      "Java",
      "C",
        "C++",
      "Python"
   ]
}
{
   "_id" : ObjectId("5c6ef57b6fd07954a48906a4"),
   "StudentName" : "Mike",
   "StudentFavouriteSubject" : [
      "Javascript",
      "HTML5",
      "CSS3"
   ]
}
{
   "_id" : ObjectId("5c6ef59c6fd07954a48906a5"),
   "StudentName" : "Sam",
   "StudentFavouriteSubject" : [
      "MongoDB",
      "MySQL",
      "SQL Server"
   ]
}

Remove field "StudentFavouriteSubject" from documents. The query is as follows:

> db.removeFieldCompletlyDemo.update({}, {$unset: {StudentFavouriteSubject:1}}, false, true);
WriteResult({ "nMatched" : 3, "nUpserted" : 0, "nModified" : 3 })

We have removed the field "StudentFavouriteSubject" from documents. Let us now display all documents from a collection to verify.

The query is as follows:

> db.removeFieldCompletlyDemo.find().pretty();

The following is the output:

{ "_id" : ObjectId("5c6ef55a6fd07954a48906a3"), "StudentName" : "Larry" }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5c6ef57b6fd07954a48906a4"), "StudentName" : "Mike" }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5c6ef59c6fd07954a48906a5"), "StudentName" : "Sam" }