On this page
- Download the
mongo
Shell - Start the
mongo
Shell and Connect to MongoDB - Working with the
mongo
Shell - Tab Completion and Other Keyboard Shortcuts
.mongorc.js
File- Exit the Shell
- Comparison of the
mongo
Shell andmongosh
The mongo
shell is an interactive JavaScript interface
to MongoDB. You can use the mongo
shell to query and update data as well as perform administrative operations.
Note
The mongo
shell is included as part of the
MongoDB server installation. If you have already installed the server, the mongo
shell is installed to the same location as the server binary.
Alternatively, if you would like to download the
mongo
shell separately from the MongoDB Server, you can install the shell as a standalone package by following these steps:
Access the Download Center for your Edition of MongoDB:
MongoDB Community Download Center
MongoDB Enterprise Download Center
Select your preferred Version and Platform from the dropdowns.
Select the Package to download according to your platform:
Platform
Download Package
Windows
Select the
zip
package to download an archive which includes themongo
shell.macOS
Select the
tgz
package to download an archive which includes themongo
shell.Linux
Select the
tgz
package to download themongo
shell.Copy the
mongo
shell from the archive to a location on your filesystem.
For additional installation guidance specific to your platform, or to install the mongo
shell as part of a MongoDB Server
installation, see the installation guide for your platform.
Once you have downloaded the mongo
shell, you can use it to connect to your running MongoDB server.
Note
Starting in MongoDB 4.2 [and 4.0.13], the
mongo
shell displays a warning message when connected to non-genuine MongoDB instances as these instances may behave differently from the official MongoDB instances; e.g. missing or incomplete features, different feature behaviors, etc.
The MongoDB server must be installed and running before you can connect to it from the
mongo
shell. Follow the steps in the installation tutorial for your platform to install and start the MongoDB server if required.Once you have verified that the
mongod
server is running, open a terminal window [or a command prompt for Windows] and go to yourdirectory:
cd
Tip
Adding your
to the
PATH
environment variable allows you to typemongo
directly instead of having to first go to thedirectory or specify the full path to the binary. Alternatively, you can copy the
mongo
shell to a location on your filesystem that is already present in yourPATH
, such as/usr/bin
on Linux.
For macOS users:
macOS may prevent the mongo
shell from running after installation. If you receive a security error when starting the mongo
shell indicating that the developer could
not be identified or verified, do the following to grant the mongo
shell access to run:
Open System Preferences
Select the Security and Privacy pane.
Under the General tab, click the button to the right of the message about the
mongo
shell, labelled either Open Anyway or Allow Anyway depending on your version of macOS.
You can run mongo
shell without any command-line options to connect to a
MongoDB instance running on your localhost with default port 27017:
To explicitly specify the port, include the --port
command-line option. For example, to connect to a MongoDB instance running on localhost with a non-default port
28015:
To explicitly specify the hostname and/or port,
You can specify a connection string. For example, to connect to a MongoDB instance running on a remote host machine:
mongo "mongodb://mongodb0.example.com:28015"
You can use the command-line option
--host :
. For example, to connect to a MongoDB instance running on a remote host machine:mongo --host mongodb0.example.com:28015
You can use the
--host
and--port
command-line options. For example, to connect to a MongoDB instance running on a remote host machine:mongo --host mongodb0.example.com --port 28015
To connect to a MongoDB instance requires authentication:
You can specify the username, authentication database, and optionally the password in the connection string. For example, to connect and authenticate to a remote MongoDB instance as user
alice
:Note
If you do not specify the password in the connection string, the shell will prompt for the password.
mongo "mongodb://:28015/?authSource=admin"
You can use the
--username
and--password
,--authenticationDatabase
command-line options. For example, to connect and authenticate to a remote MongoDB instance as useralice
:Note
If you specify
--password
without the user's password, the shell will prompt for the password.mongo --username alice --password --authenticationDatabase admin --host mongodb0.examples.com --port 28015
To connect to a replica set:
You can specify the replica set name and members in the connection string.
mongo "mongodb://mongodb0.example.com.local:27017,mongodb1.example.com.local:27017,mongodb2.example.com.local:27017/?replicaSet=replA"
If using the DNS Seed List Connection Format, you can specify the connection string:
mongo "mongodb+srv://server.example.com/"
Note
Use of the
+srv
connection string modifier automatically sets the ssl option to true for the connection.You can specify the replica set name and members from the
--host /:,:,...
command-line option. For example, to connect to replica set namedreplA
:mongo --host replA/mongodb0.example.com.local:27017,mongodb1.example.com.local:27017,mongodb2.example.com.local:27017
For TLS/SSL connections,
You can specify the
ssl=true
option in the connection string.mongo "mongodb://mongodb0.example.com.local:27017,mongodb1.example.com.local:27017,mongodb2.example.com.local:27017/?replicaSet=replA&ssl=true"
If using the DNS Seed List Connection Format, you can include the
+srv
connection string modifier:mongo "mongodb+srv://server.example.com/"
Note
Use of the
+srv
connection string modifier automatically sets the ssl option to true for the connection.You can specify
--ssl
command-line option. For example, to connect to replica set namedreplA
:mongo --ssl --host replA/mongodb0.example.com.local:27017,mongodb1.example.com.local:27017,mongodb2.example.com.local:27017
Tip
See also:
To display
the database you are using, type db
:
The operation should return test
, which is the default database.
To switch databases, issue the use
helper, as in the following example:
See also db.getSiblingDB[]
method to access a different database from the current database without switching your current database context [i.e. db
].
To list the
databases available to the user, use the helper show
dbs
. [1]
You can switch to non-existing databases. When you first store data in the database, such as by creating a collection, MongoDB creates the database. For example, the following creates both the database myNewDatabase
and the
collection myCollection
during the insertOne[]
operation:
use myNewDatabase db.myCollection.insertOne[ { x: 1 } ];
The db.myCollection.insertOne[]
is one of the methods available in the mongo shell.
db
refers to the current database.myCollection
is the name of the collection.
If the mongo
shell does not accept the name of a collection, you can use the alternative
db.getCollection[]
syntax. For instance, if a collection name contains a space or hyphen, starts with a number, or conflicts with a built-in function:
db.getCollection["3 test"].find[] db.getCollection["3-test"].find[] db.getCollection["stats"].find[]
The mongo
shell prompt has a limit of 4095 codepoints for each line. If you enter a
line with more than 4095 codepoints, the shell will truncate it.
For more documentation of basic MongoDB operations in the mongo
shell, see:
Getting Started Guide for the mongo Shell
Insert Documents
Query Documents
Update Documents
Delete Documents
mongo
Shell Methods
The db.collection.find[]
method returns a cursor to the results; however, in the
mongo
shell, if the returned cursor is not assigned to a variable using the var
keyword, then the cursor is automatically iterated up to 20 times to print up to the first 20 documents that match the query. The mongo
shell will prompt Type it
to iterate another
20 times.
To format the printed result, you can add the .pretty[]
to the operation, as in the following:
db.myCollection.find[].pretty[]
In addition, you can use the following explicit print methods in the mongo
shell:
print[]
to print without formattingprint[tojson[]]
to print with JSON formatting and equivalent toprintjson[]
printjson[]
to print with JSON formatting and equivalent toprint[tojson[]]
For more information and examples on cursor handling in the
mongo
shell, see Iterate a Cursor in the mongo
Shell. See also Cursor Help for list of cursor help in the
mongo
shell.
If you end a line with an open parenthesis ['['
], an open brace ['{'
], or an open bracket ['['
], then the subsequent lines start with ellipsis ["..."
] until you enter the corresponding closing parenthesis [']'
], the closing brace ['}'
] or the closing bracket [']'
]. The
mongo
shell waits for the closing parenthesis, closing brace, or the closing bracket before evaluating the code, as in the following example:
> if [ x > 0 ] { ... count++; ... print [x]; ... }
You can exit the line continuation mode if you enter two blank lines, as in the following example:
The
mongo
shell supports keyboard shortcuts. For example,
Use the up/down arrow keys to scroll through command history. See .dbshell documentation for more information on the
.dbshell
file.Use
to autocomplete or to list the completion possibilities, as in the following example which uses
to complete the method name starting with the letter
'c'
:Because there are many collection methods starting with the letter
'c'
, thewill list the various methods that start with
'c'
.
For a full list of the shortcuts, see Shell Keyboard Shortcuts
When starting, mongo
checks the user's HOME
directory for a JavaScript file named .mongorc.js. If found,
mongo
interprets the content of .mongorc.js
before displaying the prompt for the first time. If you use the shell to evaluate a JavaScript file or expression, either by using the --eval
option on the command line or by specifying
a .js file to mongo, mongo
will read the .mongorc.js
file after the JavaScript has finished processing. You can prevent .mongorc.js
from being loaded by using the
--norc
option.
To exit the shell, type quit[]
or use the shortcut.
Note
mongosh is currently available as a Beta release. The product, its features, and the corresponding documentation may change during the Beta stage.
The new MongoDB Shell, mongosh, offers numerous advantages over the mongo
shell, such as:
Improved syntax highlighting.
Improved command history.
Improved logging.
During the beta stage, mongosh
supports a subset of the mongo
shell methods. Achieving feature parity between mongosh
and the mongo
shell is an ongoing effort.
To maintain backwards compatibility, the methods that mongosh
supports use the same syntax as the corresponding methods in the
mongo
shell. To see the complete list of methods supported by mongosh
, see MongoDB Shell Methods.