Insert Documents

Insert Documents

MongoDB has two methods for inserting documents: insertOne() for a single document, and insertMany() for several at once.

Insert one document

db.posts.insertOne({
  title: "Post Title 1",
  body: "Body of post.",
  category: "News",
  likes: 1,
  tags: ["news", "events"],
  date: Date()
})

Insert many documents

Pass an array of documents to insertMany():

db.posts.insertMany([
  {
    title: "Post Title 2",
    body: "Body of post.",
    category: "Event",
    likes: 2,
    tags: ["news", "events"],
    date: Date()
  },
  {
    title: "Post Title 3",
    body: "Body of post.",
    category: "Technology",
    likes: 3,
    tags: ["news", "events"],
    date: Date()
  }
])

What comes back

insertOne() returns an object with acknowledged and insertedId:

{ acknowledged: true, insertedId: ObjectId("...") }

Shell tips

• After opening an object with {, press Enter to keep typing on the next line - the command only runs when you press Enter after the closing }.
• If the collection doesn't exist, inserting a document creates it automatically.

Note on dates

This tutorial's examples use Date(). In the shell you can also write new Date() or ISODate(...) for a real BSON date value.

TL;DR

• insertOne(doc) inserts a single document.
• insertMany([...]) inserts an array of documents.
• Missing collections are created automatically on insert.