MongoDB: How to update multiple documents with a single command?

Question

I was surprised to find that the following example code only updates a single document:

> db.test.save({"_id":1, "foo":"bar"});
> db.test.save({"_id":2, "foo":"bar"});

> db.test.update({"foo":"bar"}, {"$set":{"test":"success!"}});

> db.test.find({"test":"success!"}).count();
1

I know I can loop through and keep updating until they're all changed, but that seems terribly inefficient. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

Multi update was added recently, so is only available in the development releases (1.1.3). From the shell you do a multi update by passing true as the fourth argument to update(), where the the third argument is the upsert argument:

db.test.update({foo: "bar"}, {$set: {test: "success!"}}, false, true);

For versions of mongodb 2.2+ you need to set option multi true to update multiple documents at once.

db.test.update({foo: "bar"}, {$set: {test: "success!"}}, {multi: true})

For versions of mongodb 3.2+ you can also use new method updateMany() to update multiple documents at once, without the need of separate multi option.

db.test.updateMany({foo: "bar"}, {$set: {test: "success!"}})

Answer 2

UPDATE as of V2.2, the update function takes the following form:

 db.collection.update(
   <query>,
   <update>,
   { upsert: <boolean>, multi: <boolean> }
)

The selected answer no longer applies.

https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/method/db.collection.update/

Answer 3

For Mongo version > 2.2, add a field multi and set it to true

db.Collection.update({query}, 
                 {$set: {field1: "f1", field2: "f2"}},
                 {multi: true })

Answer 4

I've created a way to do this with a better interface.

• db.collection.find({ ... }).update({ ... }) -- multi update
• db.collection.find({ ... }).replace({ ... }) -- single replacement
• db.collection.find({ ... }).upsert({ ... }) -- single upsert
• db.collection.find({ ... }).remove() -- multi remove

You can also apply limit, skip, sort to the updates and removes by chaining them in beforehand.

If you are interested, check out Mongo-Hacker

Answer 5

In the MongoDB Client, type:

db.Collection.updateMany({}, $set: {field1: 'field1', field2: 'field2'})

New in version 3.2

Params::

{}:  select all records updated

Keyword argument multi not taken

Answer 6

MongoDB will find only one matching document which matches the query criteria when you are issuing an update command, whichever document matches first happens to be get updated, even if there are more documents which matches the criteria will get ignored.

so to overcome this we can specify "MULTI" option in your update statement, meaning update all those documnets which matches the query criteria. scan for all the documnets in collection finding those which matches the criteria and update :

db.test.update({"foo":"bar"},{"$set":{"test":"success!"}}, {multi:true} )

Answer 7

I had the same problem , and i found the solution , and it works like a charm

just set the flag multi to true like this :

 db.Collection.update(
                {_id_receiver: id_receiver},
               {$set: {is_showed: true}},
                {multi: true}   /* --> multiple update */
            , function (err, updated) {...});

i hope that helps :)

Answer 8

You can use.`

        Model.update({
            'type': "newuser"
        }, {
            $set: {
                email: "abc@gmail.com",
                phoneNumber:"0123456789"
            }
        }, {
            multi: true
        },
        function(err, result) {
            console.log(result);
            console.log(err);
        })  `

Answer 9

All latest versions of mongodb updateMany() is working fine

db.getCollection('workers').updateMany({},{$set: {"assignedVehicleId" : "45680"}});

Answer 10

Thanks for sharing this, I used with 2.6.7 and following query just worked,

for all docs:

db.screen.update({stat:"PRO"} , {$set : {stat:"pro"}}, {multi:true})

for single doc:

db.screen.update({stat:"PRO"} , {$set : {stat:"pro"}}, {multi:false})