> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify-poc.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# drop_vectorizer()

> Remove a vectorizer and clean up associated resources

Remove a vectorizer that you created previously and clean up the associated resources. This provides a controlled way
to delete a vectorizer when it's no longer needed or when you want to reconfigure it from scratch.

You use this function to:

* Remove a specific vectorizer configuration from the system
* Clean up associated database objects and scheduled jobs
* Safely undo the creation of a vectorizer

## What gets dropped

By default, `drop_vectorizer` removes:

* Scheduled job associated with the vectorizer (if one exists)
* Trigger from the source table used to queue changes
* Trigger function that backed the source table trigger
* Queue table used to manage updates to be processed
* Vectorizer row from the `ai.vectorizer` table

By default, `drop_vectorizer` does NOT remove:

* Target table containing the embeddings
* View joining the target and source tables

This allows you to keep generated embeddings and the view even after dropping the vectorizer, useful when you want to
stop automatic updates but still use existing embeddings.

## Samples

### Drop by name (recommended)

```sql theme={"dark"}
SELECT ai.drop_vectorizer('public_blog_embeddings');
```

### Drop by ID

```sql theme={"dark"}
SELECT ai.drop_vectorizer(1);
```

### Drop everything including embeddings

Drop the vectorizer and also remove the target table and view:

```sql theme={"dark"}
SELECT ai.drop_vectorizer('public_blog_embeddings', drop_all => true);
```

## Arguments

You can call `drop_vectorizer` in two ways:

### By name (recommended)

| Name       | Type   | Default | Required | Description                                          |
| ---------- | ------ | ------- | -------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| `name`     | `text` | -       | ✔        | The name of the vectorizer to drop                   |
| `drop_all` | `bool` | `false` | ✖        | Set to `true` to also drop the target table and view |

### By ID

| Name            | Type   | Default | Required | Description                                          |
| --------------- | ------ | ------- | -------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| `vectorizer_id` | `int`  | -       | ✔        | The identifier of the vectorizer to drop             |
| `drop_all`      | `bool` | `false` | ✖        | Set to `true` to also drop the target table and view |

## Returns

This function does not return a value, but it performs several cleanup operations.

## Best practices

* Before dropping a vectorizer, ensure you will not need the automatic embedding updates it provides
* After dropping a vectorizer, manually clean up the target table and view if they're no longer needed
* Reference vectorizers by name (recommended) rather than ID for better readability

## Related functions

* [`create_vectorizer()`][create_vectorizer]: create a new vectorizer
* [`disable_vectorizer_schedule()`][disable_vectorizer_schedule]: temporarily pause without dropping

[create_vectorizer]: /api-reference/pgai/vectorizer/create_vectorizer

[disable_vectorizer_schedule]: /api-reference/pgai/vectorizer/disable_vectorizer_schedule