---
title: "Delete an audience"
description: "Deletes the audience and drops every membership it held, in one transaction. The contacts themselves are not touched: they stay in the address book, in the default audience, and in any other audience they were in."
url: "https://openemail.uk/docs/api/audiences/delete"
area: "API"
category: "Mailbox"
---

# Delete an audience

Deletes the audience and drops every membership it held, in one transaction. The contacts themselves are not touched: they stay in the address book, in the default audience, and in any other audience they were in.

`DELETE /audiences/{id}`

## DELETE /audiences/{id}

Deletes the audience and drops every membership it held, in one transaction. The contacts themselves are not touched: they stay in the address book, in the default audience, and in any other audience they were in.

## Example

Needs `audiences:write`.

**curl**

```
curl -X DELETE "$OE/audiences/aud_4c1b8e2a7d9f05c36b4e8a71" -H "$AUTH"
```

**Response**

```
{
  "object": "audience",
  "id": "aud_4c1b8e2a7d9f05c36b4e8a71",
  "deleted": true
}
```

> The built-in default audience cannot be deleted. That call is refused with `409` `audience_immutable`, because the default audience is what makes the book readable as a list.

> There is no undo, and a new audience with the same name comes back empty.