Purge Kafka Topic

Question

Temporarily update the retention time on the topic to one second:

kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper <zkhost>:2181 --alter --topic <topic name> --config retention.ms=1000

And in newer Kafka releases, you can also do it with kafka-configs --entity-type topics

kafka-configs.sh --zookeeper <zkhost>:2181 --entity-type topics --alter --entity-name <topic name> --add-config retention.ms=1000

then wait for the purge to take effect (duration depends on size of the topic). Once purged, restore the previous retention.ms value.

To purge the queue you can delete the topic:

bin/kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper localhost:2181 --delete --topic test

then re-create it:

bin/kafka-topics.sh --create --zookeeper localhost:2181 \
    --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic test

While the accepted answer is correct, that method has been deprecated. Topic configuration should now be done via kafka-configs.

kafka-configs --zookeeper localhost:2181 --entity-type topics --alter --add-config retention.ms=1000 --entity-name MyTopic

Configurations set via this method can be displayed with the command

kafka-configs --zookeeper localhost:2181 --entity-type topics --describe --entity-name MyTopic

Here are the steps I follow to delete a topic named MyTopic:

1. Describe the topic, and take not of the broker ids
2. Stop the Apache Kafka daemon for each broker ID listed.
3. Connect to each broker, and delete the topic data folder, e.g. rm -rf /tmp/kafka-logs/MyTopic-0. Repeat for other partitions, and all replicas
4. Delete the topic metadata: zkCli.sh then rmr /brokers/MyTopic
5. Start the Apache Kafka daemon for each stopped machine

---

If you miss you step 3, then Apache Kafka will continue to report the topic as present (for example when if you run kafka-list-topic.sh).

Tested with Apache Kafka 0.8.0.

Tested in Kafka 0.8.2, for the quick-start example: First, Add one line to server.properties file under config folder:

delete.topic.enable=true

then, you can run this command:

bin/kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper localhost:2181 --delete --topic test

From kafka 1.1

Purge a topic

bin/kafka-configs.sh --zookeeper localhost:2181 --alter --entity-type topics --entity-name tp_binance_kline --add-config retention.ms=100

wait 1 minute, to be secure that kafka purge the topic remove the configuration, and then go to default value

bin/kafka-configs.sh --zookeeper localhost:2181 --alter --entity-type topics --entity-name tp_binance_kline --delete-config retention.ms