At some point, you may need to change multiple issues at the same time. You can do this by performing a bulk operation.

There are restrictions placed on some of the bulk operations. For example, if you select multiple issues with different workflows, you can only transition them in groups with the same workflow, and one group at a time. The restrictions are explained further in the relevant sections.

On this page:

Before you begin

Required permissions - To perform a bulk operation, you'll need the appropriate project-specific permission and the global Bulk Change permission. For example, you would need to have both the Move Issue and Bulk Change permissions to perform the Bulk Move operation.

Disable notifications for bulk operations - You can disable mail notifications for a particular bulk operation by deselecting the Send Notification checkbox in the bulk operation wizard. For this option to be available, you must be an administrator or project administrator of all the projects associated with your selected issues. 

Disable customer notifications - Some bulk operations, such as Change comment, might trigger email notifications to your customers. To prevent a flurry of emails, a Jira admin can temporarily disable outgoing mail in  > System > Mail > Outgoing mail. This setting controls both Jira and customer notifications, so remember to turn it back on when you're done with your bulk edit.


Using the bulk change wizard - The bulk change wizard will progress you through your bulk change. To step back at any step of the operation, select the relevant step in the menu on the left-hand side. Selecting Cancel will cancel the entire process.


Transition multiple issues

This bulk operation allows you to transition multiple issues through a workflow at the same time. You can only perform one transition bulk operation at a time. You will also need to provide any values required to complete the transition. For example, to close multiple issues, you will need to provide a value for the Resolution field, such as Done, Fixed, or Won't Fix.

  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.
  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.
  4. Select Transition Issues, and select Next.
  5. Select the available workflow action. The actions available are dependent on the issues (and their associated workflows) that you have selected. Select Next.
  6. Select a value for any required fields for this transition, and if available, decide whether you'd like to send email notifications. Select Next.
  7. Review your bulk operation, and select Confirm when you are happy with the operation.

Delete multiple issues

This bulk operation allows you to delete multiple issues at the same time.

  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.
  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.
  4. Select Delete Issues, and select Next.
  5. If available, decide whether you'd like to send email notifications. Select Next.
  6. Review your bulk operation, and select Confirm when you are happy with the operation.

Move multiple issues

This bulk operation allows you to move multiple issues at the same time. The issues you're moving need to be mapped to both a project and an issue type, and in doing this, you may need to also map the status and fields of the issues. Subtasks need to be mapped, too.

  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.

  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.

    The bulk move operation can be performed on both standard issues and sub-task issues. Standard issues can be moved to another project and issue type, whereas a sub-task can only have its issue type changed. (Note that it is possible to convert a sub-task to an issue, and vice versa.)

    It is not possible to select both a sub-task and its parent to bulk move. This is so as to adhere to the parent/sub-task relationship (i.e. the sub-task is always located in the same project as the parent issue). Any sub-tasks of selected parent issues that were also selected will be automatically discarded from the move.

    For example, you have issue B being a sub-task of issue A and you try to bulk move both A and B simultaneously. You will see a warning message (see below) and will be prompted to select a target project and issue type for issue A. If you select a new project for A, you will be prompted to move the sub-task to a new issue type based on issue A's new project. If you don't change the project for issue A, the sub-task will not be required to be moved.

  4. Select Move Issues, and select Next.

The bulk move operation may require additional information dependent on which issues you have selected to move. This information is requested as follows:

    1. Select Projects and/or Issue Types

      The first step of the Bulk Move wizard is to choose which projects and issue types you will move your issues to. The target project and issue type will determine whether extra steps will be required to migrate statuses and fields.

      Selected issues are grouped by their current project and issue type. You can either select a new project and issue type for each one or choose to move all standard issues to a single project and issue type.

      (info) Note: This does not apply to sub-tasks since they cannot be moved to a standard issue type.

    2. Select Projects and/or Issue Types for Sub-Tasks

      If you are moving issues with sub-tasks to another project, you will also need to move the sub-tasks to the new project. You can also elect to change the issue types of the sub-tasks being moved if you need to.

    3. Select status migration mappings for invalid statuses

      As multiple workflows can be active simultaneously, some statuses associated with the collection of selected issues may not be valid in the target workflow. In this case, you should map invalid statuses to valid statuses in your new workflow.

    4. Select values for required fields and fields with invalid values

      In order to adhere to the field configuration scheme associated with the target project and issue type, it may be necessary to update/populate required fields (e.g. fields that are required in the target project, but may not have been in the original project).

      For each field that needs to be populated, you will be prompted to supply a value. This value will be applied to all issues that are being Bulk Moved together.

      For the following fields, you can select from a list of possible values provided for you:

      • Component
      • Affects Version
      • Fix Version
      • Custom fields of type 'Version-Picker'

      Note that versions which have been archived in the target project cannot be selected as the target when performing a bulk move. If you need to move issues into an archived version, you will need to first unarchive the version in the target project.

      It is possible to retain original field values that are valid in the target destination by checking the Retain checkbox associated with the field. For example, some issues may already include a valid custom field value — these values can be retained, while issues that require an update will adopt the value specified on the Field Update screen.

      • Checked: the original value is retained where possible¹. The field will not be updated with the specified new value.
      • Unchecked: all fields will be updated with the specified new value.

      Note that the 'Retain' checkbox is not available for the following fields, since an explicit mapping is required:

      • Component
      • Affects Version
      • Fix Version
      • Custom fields of type 'Version-Picker'

  2. Confirm changes to be made and complete the operation

    Note that steps C and D above will occur once for each different target project and issue type combination.

    When all move parameters — e.g. target project, status mappings and field updates — have been specified for all issues, you will be presented with a confirmation screen displaying all changes that will be made to the issues being moved. The following details are displayed as applicable:

    • Issue Targets: the target project and issue type
    • Workflow: the target workflow and invalid status mappings
    • Updated Fields: new values for fields that require updating
    • Removed Fields: values to be removed in fields that are not valid in the target

    The issues will only be moved once the Confirm button is clicked from the confirmation page. If the operation is exited anytime before this step, no changes will be made to the issues.

Edit multiple issues

This bulk operation allows you to edit multiple issues at the same time. The bulk edit operations available depend on the issues selected and the nature of the field/s you want to change.

  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.
  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.
  4. Select Edit Issues, and select Next.

  5. Select the bulk edit operation from the list of available operations (expand more information for a full list of available and unavailable operations, and their conditions).


    Available Operations

    Conditions

    Change Affects Version/s

    • Selected issues belong to one project, and that project has version/s
    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Assign To

    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'assign issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Comment

    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'comment issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Component/s

    • Selected issues belong to one project, and that project has component/s
    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Due Date

    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues
    • Current user has 'schedule issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Fix For Version/s

    • Selected issues belong to one project, and that project has version/s
    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Issue Type

    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Priority

    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Reporter

    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues
    • Current user has 'modify reporter' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Security Level

    • This field is not hidden in any field configurations the selected issues belong to
    • All the selected projects are assigned the same issue level security scheme
    • Current user has 'edit issue' permission for all the selected issues
    • Current user has 'set issue security' permission for all the selected issues

    Change Custom Fields

    The 'Change Custom Fields' operation is available only if:

    • a global custom field exists OR
    • an issue type custom field exists and the issues are all of this specific issue type OR
    • a project custom field exists and the issues are all of the same project

    Edit a Closed Issue

    • Your workflow must allow editing of closed issues
    Change Sprint

    You need to specify the sprint ID.

    • This operation only affects active and future sprints, i.e. closed/completed sprints are not included when bulk editing the Sprint field.

    The fields listed in this section have no operations for bulk editing. This is because there is an alternative method or it is not logical to perform bulk edit on them.

    The following system fields are unavailable for bulk editing:

    • Attachments
    • Summary
    • Description
    • Environment
    • Project — Please use 'Bulk Move' to move issues between projects
    • Resolution — Please use 'Bulk Workflow Transitions' to modify the resolution of issues
    • Time Tracking fields — Original Estimate, Remaining Estimate, Time Spent

    The following custom field types are unavailable for bulk editing:

    • Import Id
    • Read Only Text
  6. Select a value for any required fields for this operation, and if available, decide whether you'd like to send email notifications. Select Next.

  7. Review your bulk operation, and select Confirm when you are happy with the operation.

Watch / stop watching multiple issues

These bulk operations allows you to start watching or stop watching multiple issues at the same time.

  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.
  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.
  4. Select Watch Issues, and select Next.
  5. Review your bulk operation, and select Confirm when you are happy with the operation.
  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.
  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.
  4. Select Stop Watching Issues, and select Next.
  5. Review your bulk operation, and select Confirm when you are happy with the operation.


Archive multiple issues (Data Center only)

If you want to archive thousands of issues at once, instead of selecting the issues manually, you can make a bulk change. By default, this option allows you to archive all the issues on the current page or a maximum of 1000 issues. However, a system admin can raise this limit if needed.

The issues will be archived with all their subtasks. Note that issues might have multiple subtasks so archiving might take a while because of a great number of subtasks. 

  1. Perform a search with the required filters to produce a list of issues. You can archive all the issues on the current page or a maximum of 1000 issues.
  2. Select Tools > Bulk Change.
  3. Select the issues you'd like to perform the bulk operation on, and select Next.
  4. Select Archive issues, and select Next.
  5. Review your bulk operation, and select Confirm when you are happy with the operation.
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