MongoDB Insert Documents

📝 Adding Data to MongoDB

Inserting documents is how you add new data to MongoDB collections. You can insert one document at a time or multiple documents in a single operation. Each document is stored as a JSON-like structure called BSON.


import pymongo

# Connect to MongoDB
client = pymongo.MongoClient("mongodb://localhost:27017/")
db = client["mystore"]
collection = db["products"]

# Insert a single document
product = {"name": "Laptop", "price": 999, "category": "Electronics"}
result = collection.insert_one(product)
print(f"Inserted document with ID: {result.inserted_id}")

1

Document

Many

At Once

Auto

ID

Insert Methods

📄

Insert One

Add a single document

user = {"name": "John", "age": 25}
result = collection.insert_one(user)
print(result.inserted_id)

📚

Insert Many

Add multiple documents

users = [
    {"name": "Alice", "age": 30},
    {"name": "Bob", "age": 35}
]
result = collection.insert_many(users)

🔑

Auto ID

MongoDB creates unique _id automatically

# No need to specify _id
doc = {"title": "My Post"}
result = collection.insert_one(doc)
# MongoDB adds _id automatically

✅

Return Info

Get confirmation of insertion

result = collection.insert_one(doc)
print(f"Success: {result.acknowledged}")
print(f"ID: {result.inserted_id}")

Insert One Document

Use insert_one() to add a single document to a collection

import pymongo

# Connect to database
client = pymongo.MongoClient("mongodb://localhost:27017/")
db = client["school"]
students = db["students"]

# Create a student document
student = {
    "name": "Emma Wilson",
    "age": 20,
    "grade": "A",
    "subjects": ["Math", "Science"]
}

# Insert the document
result = students.insert_one(student)

print(f"Document inserted successfully!")
print(f"Document ID: {result.inserted_id}")
print(f"Acknowledged: {result.acknowledged}")

Insert Multiple Documents

Use insert_many() to add multiple documents at once

# Create multiple student documents
student_list = [
    {"name": "John Doe", "age": 19, "grade": "B"},
    {"name": "Jane Smith", "age": 21, "grade": "A"},
    {"name": "Mike Johnson", "age": 20, "grade": "C"}
]

# Insert all documents
result = students.insert_many(student_list)

print(f"Inserted {len(result.inserted_ids)} documents")
print("Document IDs:")
for doc_id in result.inserted_ids:
    print(f"  - {doc_id}")

Custom Document ID

You can specify your own _id instead of using the auto-generated one

# Insert with custom ID
custom_student = {
    "_id": "student_001",
    "name": "Sarah Connor",
    "age": 22,
    "grade": "A+"
}

try:
    result = students.insert_one(custom_student)
    print(f"Inserted with custom ID: {result.inserted_id}")
except pymongo.errors.DuplicateKeyError:
    print("Error: Document with this ID already exists!")

Practical Examples

Real-world scenarios for inserting documents

🔹 E-commerce Product

# Insert a product
product = {
    "name": "Wireless Headphones",
    "price": 79.99,
    "category": "Electronics",
    "in_stock": True,
    "tags": ["wireless", "bluetooth", "music"]
}

products = db["products"]
result = products.insert_one(product)
print(f"Product added with ID: {result.inserted_id}")

🔹 Blog Post

from datetime import datetime

# Insert a blog post
post = {
    "title": "Getting Started with MongoDB",
    "author": "Tech Writer",
    "content": "MongoDB is a great NoSQL database...",
    "created_at": datetime.now(),
    "views": 0,
    "published": True
}

posts = db["posts"]
result = posts.insert_one(post)
print(f"Blog post published with ID: {result.inserted_id}")