Commenting on an Issue

Adding comments to an issue is a useful way to record additional detail about an issue, and collaborate with team members. Comments are shown in the Comments tab of the Activity section when you view an issue.

(info) Note:

  • When adding a comment, you can set the comment to be Viewable by members of a particular project role or user group only; or you can allow all users to view it.
  • For users to view a comment, they must have the Browse Project project permission to view the issue and for each comment, they must be a member of the Viewable by users (see Adding a Comment below).
  • You automatically become a watcher of the issues that you comment on. You can disable this via the Preferences > Autowatch option in your profile.

On this page:


Adding a comment

To add comments to an issue, i.e. to see the Comment button, you must have both of the following permissions for the issue's relevant project:

To add a comment:

  1. Open the issue on which to add your comment.
  2. Click the Comment button.
    (tick) Keyboard shortcut: m
  3. In the Comment text box, type your comment, using as many lines as you require. (tick) You can use wiki markup in this text box if the Wiki Style Renderer is enabled.
    • To apply viewing restrictions to a comment: click the open padlock icon next to Viewable by... and select which users will be able to view this comment.
      (info) The Viewable by... list also includes all project roles and groups to which you belong. (Note that All Users means everybody who uses JIRA, while Users means everybody who is a member of the Users project role in this project.) Depending on how your JIRA administrator has configured 'Comment visibility', the Viewable by... list may include groups as well as project roles.

      Once viewing restrictions have been applied to a comment, the padlock icon closes and Viewable by... is replaced by Restricted to... and indicates the user, project role or group, who can view this comment, for example:
    • To email other users about your comment: simply mention these users in the Comment text box. An email message will be sent to the user's email address (registered with their JIRA account) upon clicking the Update button. See Emailing an issue to users by mentioning them for details on the correct syntax.
  4. Click the Add button to save the comment.

(info) For each comment on an issue, a small version of the comment author's user avatar appears to the left of their full name.

Collapsing and expanding a comment

To collapse or expand a comment:

  1. Locate the comment in the Activity section at the bottom of the issue.
  2. Browse to the comment you wish to collapse/expand.
  3. To collapse or expand a comment, click the arrow icon, located on the comment:

(info) Collapsing or expanding a comment does not relate in any way to a comment's 'viewing restrictions' applied when adding or editing a comment.

Editing a comment

You can edit your own comments if you have been granted the Edit Own Comments project permission.

You can edit other people's comments if you have been granted the Edit All Comments project permission.

To edit a comment:

  1. Locate the comment in the Activity section at the bottom of the issue.
  2. Browse to the comment you wish to edit.
  3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon, located on the comment:
  4. Edit the comment's text and/or Viewable by list as required.
  5. Click the Save button.
  6. The word 'edited' will be displayed to indicate that the comment has been edited. You can hover your mouse over the word 'edited' to see who edited the comment and when.

Deleting a comment

You can delete your own comments if you have been granted the Delete Own Comments project permission.

You can delete other people's comments if you have been granted the Delete All Comments project permission.

To delete a comment:

  1. Hover your mouse over the comment you wish to delete.
  2. Click the Delete (trash-can) icon, located on the comment:
  3. Confirm the deletion by clicking the Delete button.

Linking to a comment

Sometimes you may want to link to a specific comment within a JIRA issue.

  1. Browse to the comment you wish to link to.
  2. Right-click on the Permlink (link) icon located on the comment, then copy the permanent link to the comment.
  3. Paste the copied permanent link into wherever you want to link from, e.g. an email.

Clicking the permanent link takes you to that particular comment in the JIRA issue. If your JIRA issue contains an extensive list of comments, the issue page will automatically be scrolled down so that the linked comment is visible.


Related topics

Emailing an Issue

Last modified on May 6, 2016

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