diff --git a/packages/api/src/elastic/pages.ts b/packages/api/src/elastic/pages.ts
index 53e8724f2..4f29984f3 100644
--- a/packages/api/src/elastic/pages.ts
+++ b/packages/api/src/elastic/pages.ts
@@ -696,7 +696,7 @@ export const searchAsYouType = async (
 }
 
 export const updatePages = async (
-  userId: string,
+  ctx: PageContext,
   action: BulkActionType,
   args: PageSearchArgs,
   maxDocs: number,
@@ -766,7 +766,7 @@ export const updatePages = async (
   }
 
   // build the query
-  const searchBody = buildSearchBody(userId, args)
+  const searchBody = buildSearchBody(ctx.uid, args)
     .rawOption('script', updatedScript)
     .build()
 
@@ -781,6 +781,7 @@ export const updatePages = async (
       max_docs: maxDocs,
       requests_per_second: 500, // throttle the requests
       slices: 'auto', // parallelize the requests
+      refresh: ctx.refresh,
     })
 
     // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-unsafe-member-access
@@ -789,6 +790,8 @@ export const updatePages = async (
       return null
     }
 
+    // TODO: publish entityUpdated events for each page
+
     if (async) {
       console.log('update pages task started', body.task)
       return body.task as string
diff --git a/packages/api/src/resolvers/article/index.ts b/packages/api/src/resolvers/article/index.ts
index c78cc6c2e..8c3d51d83 100644
--- a/packages/api/src/resolvers/article/index.ts
+++ b/packages/api/src/resolvers/article/index.ts
@@ -1110,7 +1110,7 @@ export const bulkActionResolver = authorized<
   async (
     _parent,
     { query, action, labelIds, expectedCount, async },
-    { claims: { uid }, log }
+    { claims: { uid }, log, pubsub }
   ) => {
     log.info('bulkActionResolver')
 
@@ -1146,9 +1146,12 @@ export const bulkActionResolver = authorized<
     // parse query
     const searchQuery = parseSearchQuery(query)
 
+    // refresh index if not async
+    const ctx = { uid, pubsub, refresh: !async }
+
     // start a task to update pages
     const taskId = await updatePages(
-      uid,
+      ctx,
       action,
       searchQuery,
       Math.min(expectedCount ?? 500, 500), // default and max to 500