# rpk topic delete

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/llms.txt). Component-specific: [streaming-full.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/streaming-full.txt)

---
title: rpk topic delete
latest-redpanda-tag: v25.3.11
latest-console-tag: v3.7.3
latest-operator-version: v26.1.4
# EOL = End-of-Life (support lifecycle status)
page-is-nearing-eol: "false"
page-is-past-eol: "false"
page-eol-date: November 19, 2026
latest-connect-version: 4.93.0
docname: rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete
page-component-name: streaming
page-version: "25.3"
page-component-version: "25.3"
page-component-title: Streaming
page-relative-src-path: rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete.adoc
page-edit-url: https://github.com/redpanda-data/docs/edit/v/25.3/modules/reference/pages/rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete.adoc
page-git-created-date: "2023-05-17"
page-git-modified-date: "2024-07-24"
support-status: supported
---

<!-- Source: https://docs.redpanda.com/streaming/25.3/reference/rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete.md -->

Delete topics.

This command deletes all requested topics, printing the success or fail status per topic.

The `--regex` or `-r` flag opts into parsing the input topics as regular expressions and deleting any non-internal topic that matches any of expressions. The input expressions are wrapped with `^` and `$` so that the expression must match the whole topic name (which also prevents accidental delete-everything mistakes).

The topic list command accepts the same input regex format as this delete command. If you want to check what your regular expressions will delete before actually deleting them, you can check the output of `rpk topic list -r`.

## [](#examples)Examples

Deletes topics foo and bar:

```bash
rpk topic  delete foo bar
```

Deletes any topic starting with `f` and any topics ending in `r`:

```bash
rpk topic  delete -r '^f.*' '.*r$'
```

Deletes all topics:

```bash
rpk topic  delete -r '.*'
```

Deletes any one-character topics:

## [](#usage)Usage

```bash
rpk topic delete [TOPICS...] [flags]
```

## [](#flags)Flags

| Value | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| -h, --help | - | Help for delete. |
| -r, --regex | - | Parse topics as regex; delete any topic that matches any input topic expression. |
| --config | string | Redpanda or rpk config file; default search paths are /var/lib/redpanda/.config/rpk/rpk.yaml, $PWD/redpanda.yaml, and /etc/redpanda/redpanda.yaml. |
| -X, --config-opt | stringArray | Override rpk configuration settings. See rpk -X or execute rpk -X help for inline detail or rpk -X list for terser detail. |
| --profile | string | Profile to use. See rpk profile for more details. |
| -v, --verbose | - | Enable verbose logging. |