---
title: Drop fields from events
description: The drop_fields processor specifies which fields to drop if a certain condition is fulfilled. The condition is optional. If it’s missing, the specified...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/metricbeat/drop-fields
products:
  - Beats
  - Metricbeat
applies_to:
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Drop fields from events
The `drop_fields` processor specifies which fields to drop if a certain condition is fulfilled. The condition is optional. If it’s missing, the specified fields are always dropped. The `@timestamp` and `type` fields cannot be dropped, even if they show up in the `drop_fields` list.
```yaml
processors:
  - drop_fields:
      when:
        condition
      fields: ["field1", "field2", ...]
      ignore_missing: false
```

See [Conditions](/docs/reference/beats/metricbeat/defining-processors#conditions) for a list of supported conditions.
<note>
  If you define an empty list of fields under `drop_fields`, then no fields are dropped.
</note>

The `drop_fields` processor has the following configuration settings:
<definitions>
  <definition term="fields">
    If non-empty, a list of matching field names will be removed. Any element in array can contain a regular expression delimited by two slashes (*/reg_exp/*), in order to match (name) and remove more than one field.
  </definition>
  <definition term="ignore_missing">
    (Optional) If `true` the processor will not return an error when a specified field does not exist. Defaults to `false`.
  </definition>
</definitions>