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Can’t reuse deleted project key AD on Jira Cloud free site

Michel
April 21, 2026

Hi all,

I’m site admin on a Jira Cloud Free site:

  • Site: michelanalytics.atlassian.net

  • Old project key: AD

I previously had a project (Space) with key AD. I deleted it and also removed it from the Trash.

Now I cannot create a new project with the same key AD – Jira says the key is not available / already in use.

Current behavior:

  • JQL

    project = AD

    returns:

    The value 'AD' does not exist for the field 'project'.

  • Opening https://michelanalytics.atlassian.net/browse/AD-1 shows:

    “We can't show this project”.

  • In Projects, Trash, and any archived projects, there is no project with key AD.

  • I am site admin, so I should see everything.

It looks like the original project is gone from the UI, but the key AD is still reserved internally, so I can’t reuse it.

Because this is a Free plan, I can’t open an official Atlassian support ticket and get redirected to the Community.

Questions:

  • Has anyone seen this before (deleted + removed from Trash, but key still blocked)?

  • Is there any way on a Free plan to free the key AD, or do I have to:

    • use a different key (e.g. AD2), or

    • temporarily upgrade to Standard to ask Atlassian to free AD?

Thanks!

1 answer

1 accepted

4 votes
Answer accepted
Trudy Claspill
Community Champion
April 21, 2026

Hello @Michel 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

How long after removing the project from the trash did you try to reuse the key?

If it was a short period of time you may want to wait and retry an hour or two later, giving time for reindexing to complete.

Michel
April 21, 2026

Hi @Trudy Claspill I fews minutes. Thanks a lot for fastersponse and for your suggestion !

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DEPLOYMENT TYPE
CLOUD
PRODUCT PLAN
FREE
PERMISSIONS LEVEL
Product Admin
TAGS
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