Jira Service Management – Automatically delete issues after 7 days (Archived status)

[fstunnel_altlassian_fr]

Hello everyone,

I’m working with Jira Service Management (Cloud) and I’m trying to implement the following behavior using native automation:

Goal

Automatically delete issues 7 days after they transition to the “ARCHIVED” status.

Context

• Project type: Jira Service Management

• Automation scope: project (service project) automation

• The ARCHIVED status is a final state, used for requests that should no longer be kept in the project.

• I understand that:

  • the Delay / Wait action is not available in JSM automation,

  • scheduled rules + JQL can be used for transitions or updates,

  • however, I can’t find any automation action that allows deleting issues.

Question

Is there:

• a native solution I may be missing?

• a recommended approach from Atlassian (without using APIs or Marketplace apps)?

• or is automatic issue deletion intentionally not supported in Jira Service Management?

If anyone has already handled a similar use case (archive + automatic cleanup/purge), I’d really appreciate your feedback or best practices.

Thanks in advance!

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @fstunnel_altlassian_fr 

Your post tags indicate you are using a Free subscription for Jira. Is that correct?

If so, the suggestion to archive issues using the native Archive function is not available to you. Native issue archiving is available only in Premium and Enterprise subscriptions.

But I agree with the other responders in the recommendation that you should not delete the issues because they are permanently and unrecoverably removed from your instance.

A couple of alternatives for you to consider:

1. Adjust your filter to exclude issues that are in the Archived status if they have been there for more than 7 days.

2. Move the issues to another project, if you don't want them visible in your daily use project. The Move options is available to use manually from the Bulk Change menu. There is not a Move action within Automation Rules, but you could use the Send Web Request action in an Automation Rule to call the Issue Bulk Operations API which supports moving issues.

https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/api-group-issue-bulk-operations/#api-rest-api-3-bulk-issues-move-post

[Joseph Chung Yin]

@fstunnel_altlassian_fr -

The action is "Delete work item" in the automation rule setup...

However, I will not recommend issue deletion in JSM because in Jira/JSM env - once a work item is deleted, it is gone for good.  I would recommend that you design a process (maybe using APIs to archive the targeted work items or using automation with sending a web request to archive the issues - See this community post: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-to-implement-bulk-archive-rule-created-in-Jira-automation/qaq-p/3122339#:~:text=@Varsha%20Joshi%20yes%20it%20is,Joel%20Fraser%20October%202%2C%202025)

Hope this helps.

Best, Joseph Chung Yin

[Rock]

In Jira Service Management Cloud, you can use the "Delete work item" action in automation rules to remove issues. However, deletion is permanent. A safer approach is to archive issues using APIs or automation with a web request.

[Fabian Lim]

@fstunnel_altlassian_fr

1. You will need to create an SLA that tracks the Time to Deletion for 7 days which begins counting once the ticket is transitions to "Archived"

2. Create an automation with the following:

- Trigger: SLA for Time to Deletion is breached

- Action: Delete work item.

I hope this helps.

Fabian