How to delete a topic in Apache Kafka Message Broker 0.9.x?

Deleting a topic is relevant only in development or testing environments. DO NOT enable this setting in production.

To delete a topic (associated with a message queue in other systems). you need the following
1. The zookeeper ensemble that Kafka clusters use.
2. Enable delete of topic in the server.properties namely

delete.topic.enable=true

Refer to How to setup standalone instance of Apache Kafka 0.9.0.1 on localhost for Mac OS X? for enabling this setting.

For a kafka server cluster installation with a zookeeper ensemble. Refer How to setup a 2 Node Apache Kafka 0.9.0.1 cluster in CentOS 7?

Navigate to any node of Kafka installation instance namely

cd /usr/local/kafka/kafka_2.11-0.9.0.1

bin/kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper ZKNODE1:2181,ZKNODE2:2181,ZKNODE3:2181  --delete --topic topicName

For a local Kafka install. Refer to How to setup standalone instance of Apache Kafka 0.9.0.1 on localhost for Mac OS X?

Navigate to installation instance namely

cd /usr/local/kafka/kafka_2.11-0.9.0.1

bin/kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper yourmac.local:2181 --delete --topic topicName

Note: Make sure that you have killed all consumers before your delete the topic. Kafka would take anywhere between 2 seconds to a minute to delete a topic. When the delete command is issued it would just mark the topic for deletion.