Elasticsearch query to return all records

I think lucene syntax is supported so:

http://localhost:9200/foo/_search?pretty=true&q=*:*

size defaults to 10, so you may also need &size=BIGNUMBER to get more than 10 items. (where BIGNUMBER equals a number you believe is bigger than your dataset)

BUT, elasticsearch documentation suggests for large result sets, using the scan search type.

EG:

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/foo/_search?search_type=scan&scroll=10m&size=50' -d '
{
    "query" : {
        "match_all" : {}
    }
}'

and then keep requesting as per the documentation link above suggests.

EDIT: scan Deprecated in 2.1.0.

scan does not provide any benefits over a regular scroll request sorted by _doc. link to elastic docs (spotted by @christophe-roussy)

http://127.0.0.1:9200/foo/_search/?size=1000&pretty=1
                                   ^

Note the size param, which increases the hits displayed from the default (10) to 1000 per shard.

http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-request-from-size.html

Note: The answer relates to an older version of Elasticsearch 0.90. Versions released since then have an updated syntax. Please refer to other answers that may provide a more accurate answer to the latest answer that you are looking for.

The query below would return the NO_OF_RESULTS you would like to be returned..

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/foo/_search?size=NO_OF_RESULTS' -d '
{
"query" : {
    "match_all" : {}
  }
}'

Now, the question here is that you want all the records to be returned. So naturally, before writing a query, you wont know the value of NO_OF_RESULTS.

How do we know how many records exist in your document? Simply type the query below

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/foo/_search' -d '

This would give you a result that looks like the one below

 {
hits" : {
  "total" :       2357,
  "hits" : [
    {
      ..................

The result total tells you how many records are available in your document. So, that's a nice way to know the value of NO_OF RESULTS

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/_search' -d ' 

Search all types in all indices

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/foo/_search' -d '

Search all types in the foo index

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/foo1,foo2/_search' -d '

Search all types in the foo1 and foo2 indices

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/f*/_search

Search all types in any indices beginning with f

curl -XGET 'localhost:9200/_all/type1,type2/_search' -d '

Search types user and tweet in all indices

elasticsearch(ES) supports both a GET or a POST request for getting the data from the ES cluster index.

When we do a GET:

http://localhost:9200/[your index name]/_search?size=[no of records you want]&q=*:*

When we do a POST:

http://localhost:9200/[your_index_name]/_search
{
  "size": [your value] //default 10
  "from": [your start index] //default 0
  "query":
   {
    "match_all": {}
   }
}   

I would suggest to use a UI plugin with elasticsearch http://mobz.github.io/elasticsearch-head/ This will help you get a better feeling of the indices you create and also test your indices.