Documentation for JIRA 5.2. Documentation for other versions of JIRA is available too.

In order to provide fast searching, JIRA creates an index of the text entered into issue fields. This index is stored on the file system, and updated whenever issue text is added or modified. It is sometimes necessary to regenerate this index manually; for instance if issues have been manually entered into the database, or the index has been lost or corrupted.

See Re-Indexing after Major Configuration Changes for more information on when you should re-index.

Re-indexing JIRA

  1. Log in as a user with the 'JIRA Administrators' global permission.
  2. Choose Administration at the top right of your screen. Then choose System > Advanced > Indexing (tab) to open the 'Re-Indexing' page.
    (tick) Keyboard shortcut: 'g' + 'g' + type 'index'

  3. This page allows you to:

    • Re-index all issues — This will re-index all issues in the background.
    • Delete and rebuild all indices — This will delete and rebuild all indices, including the comment and change history indices.

Screenshot: Re-indexing JIRA

Which re-indexing option should I use?

The Re-index all issues option should be used in the majority of circumstances, particularly following changes to the configuration. It will generally take significantly longer to perform than the Delete and rebuild all indices option, but it allows JIRA to remain usable while it is being done. There will however be a performance impact on JIRA as a whole. We recommend that you perform this option during a low usage period. The actual impact of running the Re-index all issues option will depend upon the customer's particular hardware and software installation as well as how many issues are in the system.

The Delete and rebuild all indexes should be used when:

  • the indices are corrupt, which may be caused by a system or disk failure or
  • it is more important to have the re-index completed quickly than to have JIRA continuously available. The Delete and rebuild all indices option may be in the order of twice as fast as a background re-index.

The following table summarises the differences between the two options:

Re-index all issuesDelete and rebuild all indexes
Slower to complete.Faster to complete (may be up to twice as fast).

JIRA can be used by users during re-index.

JIRA cannot be used by users during re-index.
Can be cancelled at any time.Cannot be cancelled once started.

Choosing a custom Index Path

  • If you upgraded JIRA with an XML backup from a JIRA version prior to 4.2 and used a custom directory for your index path, you can choose between using this custom directory (which cannot be edited) or the default directory for your index path location. However, once you switch to using the default directory, you can no longer choose the custom directory option.
  • The default directory location is the caches/indexes subdirectory of the JIRA Home Directory.



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