Mongoose - Set TTL on MongoDB Document

Question

I am trying to set a TTL via mongoose when a document is created in MongoDB, but I'm not having any luck with any of my attempts. Latest version of mongoose is being used in my project and from what I can tell I've tried the most common answers here on SO and elsewhere online.

My Schema

const mongoose = require('mongoose');

const jobSchema = new mongoose.Schema(
    {
        positionTitle: {
            type: String,
        },
        description: {
            type: String,
        }
    });

const Jobs = mongoose.model('job', jobSchema);

module.exports = Jobs;

I have tried adding a createdAt with expires based on this question answer:

const jobSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    positionTitle: {
        type: String,
    },
    description: {
        type: String,
    },
    createdAt: { type: Date, expires: 3600 },
});

Along with this option that's also in the same question to have createdAt be created automatically via timestamps:

const jobSchema = new mongoose.Schema(
    {
        positionTitle: {
            type: String,
        },
        description: {
            type: String,
        },
    },
    { timestamps: true }
);

Trying variations of the following to set an index with timestamps defined:
jobSchema.index({ createdAt: 1 }, { expires: 86400 });
jobSchema.index({ createdAt: 1 }, { expires: '1 day' });
jobSchema.index({ createdAt: 1 }, { expireAfterSeconds: 3600 });

Regardless of which option I try, the document is removed after MongoDB's 60-second cycle when a createdAt field is set on the document. Would really love to know what I'm doing wrong.

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 07 '21 at 17:01

After trying all the solutions in the thread you mentioned, none of them worked. In the end this code did the trick. It involves setting the expireAt field to the actual time that you want it deleted, which makes sense really.

const Schema = mongoose.Schema;

const YourSchema = new Schema({
 expireAt: {
   type: Date,
   default: Date.now() + 10 * 60 * 1000   // expires in 10 minutes
 },
});

This is the only thing that worked, all the other solutions I tried always deleted after 1min, no matter the amount of time I added.

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 25 '20 at 03:56

I've been having issues with this as well. I found this thread here https://github.com/Automattic/mongoose/issues/2459 and it worked for me. Translated into your code would look like this.

const mongoose = require('mongoose');



   const jobSchema = new mongoose.Schema(
        {
            positionTitle: {
                type: String,
            },
            description: {
                type: String,
            },
            expireAt: {
                type: Date,
                default: Date.now,
                index: { expires: '5s' }
            }

       });
    
const Jobs = mongoose.model('job', jobSchema);

module.exports = Jobs;

On the link I added, it is the very last solution. I'm not exactly sure what this is doing but here is the mongo link of what it should be doing for anyone else with this issue. https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/tutorial/expire-data/. To change the amount of time that you need the document just change the expires. It accepts '#s' and '#d' for sure. Also if you want your document to be deleted at a specific time then you can do this.

expireAt: {
   type: Date,
   default: new Date('July 22, 2013 14:00:00'),
   index: { expires: '0s' }
}

This will delete the document 0 seconds after the specified date.

Aadil Shaikh · Answer 3 · 2023-01-29T07:35:10.603

Problem in TTL, Reason behind Document does not delete after some / few seconds, how to expire document in MongoDB / Mongoose using schema. Solution expireAfterSeconds / expires / index.

NOTE: - MongoDB's data expiration task runs once a minute, so an expired doc might persist up to a minute past its expiration. This feature requires MongoDB 2.2 or later. It's up to you to set createdAt to the current time when creating docs or add a default to do it for you as suggested here.

NOTE :- Below code is working fine and the document will delete after 5 minutes.

  const verficationSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    email: {
      type: String,
      required: true,
      unique: true,
      lowercase: true,
      trim: true,
      validate(email) {
        if (!validator.isEmail(email)) {
          throw new Error("Email is not valid!");
        }
      },
    },
    otp: {
      type: Number,
      required : true
    },
    expireAt : {
      type: Date,
      default: Date,
      expires : 300 // means 300 seconds = 5 minutes
    }
 });

NOTE :- Upper code is working fine, But document will delete after 1 minutes, because MongoDB check expiration procedure after every 1 minutes.

  const verficationSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    email: {
      type: String,
      required: true,
      unique: true,
      lowercase: true,
      trim: true,
      validate(email) {
        if (!validator.isEmail(email)) {
          throw new Error("Email is not valid!");
        }
      },
    },
    otp: {
      type: Number,
      required : true
    },
    expireAt : {
      type: Date,
      default: Date,
      expires : 8 // means 8 seconds
    }
 });

Mongoose - Set TTL on MongoDB Document

3 Answers3