UNLINK - Upstash Documentation

Use UNLINK to delete keys without freeing their memory in the foreground.

The keys are removed from the keyspace immediately, so from a client's point of view they are gone as soon as the command returns, but the memory of large values is reclaimed by a background thread. That makes it a safer alternative to DEL for collections with many elements, where freeing memory synchronously can block the server for a noticeable time. The reply counts the keys that existed.

Syntax#

UNLINK <key> [<key> ...]

Arguments#

Argument	Required	Repeatable	Description
`<key>`	Yes	Yes	Redis key targeted by the command.

Response#

The reply reports the result of the operation. Error replies have the same shape in RESP2 and RESP3 and are surfaced as exceptions by the SDKs below.

Protocol	Reply
RESP2	Integer
RESP3	Integer

Note

Client libraries often decode bulk strings, maps, sets, and numeric strings into language-native values. The table describes the Redis wire reply.

Examples#

TCP examples use the TLS REDIS_URL from the Upstash console. REST examples use UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL and UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN.

Redis CLI

UNLINK my-key

@upstash/redis

import { Redis } from "@upstash/redis";const redis = Redis.fromEnv();await redis.unlink("key1", "key2");

upstash_redis

from upstash_redis import Redisredis = Redis.from_env()result = redis.unlink("my-key")print(result)

ioredis

import Redis from "ioredis";const redis = new Redis(process.env.REDIS_URL!);const result = await redis.unlink("my-key");console.log(result);

node-redis

import { createClient } from "redis";const client = await createClient({ url: process.env.REDIS_URL })  .on("error", console.error)  .connect();const result = await client.unlink("my-key");console.log(result);

redis-py

import osimport redisclient = redis.from_url(os.environ["REDIS_URL"])result = client.unlink("my-key")print(result)

go-redis

package mainimport (    "context"    "fmt"    "os"    "github.com/redis/go-redis/v9")func main() {    opts, err := redis.ParseURL(os.Getenv("REDIS_URL"))    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    client := redis.NewClient(opts)    result, err := client.Unlink(context.Background(), "my-key").Result()    if err != nil {        panic(err)    }    fmt.Println(result)}

jedis

import java.net.URI;import redis.clients.jedis.Jedis;try (Jedis jedis = new Jedis(new URI(System.getenv("REDIS_URL")))) {  Object result = jedis.unlink("my-key");  System.out.println(result);}

redis-rs

use redis::TypedCommands;fn main() -> redis::RedisResult<()> {    let url = std::env::var("REDIS_URL").expect("REDIS_URL is not set");    let client = redis::Client::open(url)?;    let mut connection = client.get_connection()?;    let result = connection.unlink("my-key")?;    println!("{result:?}");    Ok(())}