$limit and $skip stages in MongoDB

Introduction

We use $limit and $skip to control how many results we get and where to start in a list of data. This helps us see just the part we want.

When you want to show only the first 5 items from a big list of products.

When you want to skip the first 10 messages and see the next ones in a chat app.

When you want to create pages of results, like showing 10 users per page.

When you want to test a small part of your data without loading everything.

When you want to jump to a specific spot in your data list to continue reading.

Syntax

MongoDB

{ $limit: <number> },
{ $skip: <number> }

$limit sets the maximum number of documents to return.

$skip tells MongoDB to ignore a number of documents before returning results.

Examples

This will return only the first 3 documents from the collection.

MongoDB

[ { $limit: 3 } ]

This will skip the first 5 documents and return the rest.

MongoDB

[ { $skip: 5 } ]

This skips the first 2 documents, then returns the next 4 documents.

MongoDB

[ { $skip: 2 }, { $limit: 4 } ]

Sample Program

This query skips the first 2 books and then returns the next 3 books from the books collection.

MongoDB

db.books.aggregate([
  { $skip: 2 },
  { $limit: 3 }
])

Important Notes

Always use $skip before $limit to get the correct slice of data.

Using $skip with a large number can be slow because MongoDB still processes skipped documents.

These stages are often used together to create pagination in apps.

Summary

$limit controls how many results you get back.

$skip tells MongoDB to ignore some results before starting to return data.

Use them together to get specific parts of your data, like pages.