Workaround for the slow pagination using skip in MongoDB

Recently I came across a big MongoDB database which needed pagination. But it was surprising how getting to page number 2000 ended up in a timeout. A quick research led me to MongoDB documentation:


So “skip” clearly won’t work for a big set which led to the sort and gt solution.

Sorting and $gt:

Simply sorting by a created_at field then continuing from the last known created_at date by finding the next set would solve the problem.

ids = db.c.find({}, {_id:1}).map(function(item){ return item._id; });
docs = db.c.find( { _id: { $in: ids.slice(2000,2050) } } );