How Do I Delete All Messages from a Single Queue Using the Cli?

you can directly run this command

sudo rabbitmqctl purge_queue queue_name

RabbitMQ has 2 things under queue

1. Delete
2. Purge

Delete - will delete the queue

Purge - This will empty the queue (meaning removes messages from the queue but queue still exists)

To purge queue you can use following command (more information in API doc):

curl -i -u guest:guest -XDELETE 

RabbitMQ implements the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) so you can use generic tools for stuff like this.

On Debian/Ubuntu or similar system, do:

sudo apt-get install amqp-tools
amqp-delete-queue -q celery  # where celery is the name of the queue to delete
amqp-declare-queue -d -q celery # where celery is the name of the queue to delete and the "-d" creates a durable/persistent queue

Edit 2022: Added amqp-declare-queue to the example

IMPORTANT NOTE: This will delete all users and config.

ALERT !!

ALERT !!

I don't suggest this answer until unless you want to delete data from all of the queues, including users and configs. Just Reset it !!!

rabbitmqctl stop_app
rabbitmqctl reset
rabbitmqctl start_app

In order to delete only messages from the queue use :

sudo rabbitmqctl --node <nodename> purge_queue <queue_name>

In order to delete a queue which is empty(--if-empty) or has no consumers(--if-unused) use :

sudo rabbitmqctl --node <nodename> delete_queue <queue_name> --if-empty

or

sudo rabbitmqctl --node <nodename> delete_queue <queue_name> --if-unused 

I guess its late but for others reference, this can be done with pika

import pika
host_ip = #host ip
channel = pika.BlockingConnection(pika.ConnectionParameters(host_ip,
                                                        5672,
                                                        "/",
credentials=pika.PlainCredentials("username","pwd"))).channel()
print "deleting queue..", channel.queue_delete(queue=queue_name)

In case you are using RabbitMQ with Docker your steps should be:

1. Connect to container: docker exec -it your_container_id bash
2. rabbitmqctl purge_queue Queue-1 (where Queue-1 is queue name)

I have successfully used ampq-purge from amqp-utils to do this:

git clone 
cd amqp-utils
# extracted from Rakefile
echo "source '
gem 'amqp', '~> 0.7.1'
gem 'trollop', '~> 1.16.2'
gem 'facets', '~> 2.9'
gem 'clio', '~> 0.3.0'
gem 'json', '~> 1.5'
gem 'heredoc_unindent', '~> 1.1.2'
gem 'msgpack', '~> 0.4.5'" > Gemfile
bundle install --path=$PWD/gems
export RUBYLIB=.
export GEM_HOME=$PWD/gems/ruby/1.9.1

ruby bin/amqp-purge -v -V /vhost -u user -p queue
# paste password at prompt

My rabbitmqclt was an older version without purge_queue, and I did not have rabbitmqadmin installed.

Our app runs on celery and it has this command that worked:

celery -A <app_name> -Q <queue_name> purge