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How do I delete an initiative?

Lori Pickering
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December 2, 2025

I am the owner and administrator of my space (and the organization).  When I select and delete an item in a list, Jira tells me "You need permission from an admin first."  I am the administrator.

3 answers

3 votes
Trudy Claspill
Community Champion
December 2, 2025

Hello @Lori Pickering 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

If you are trying to delete an issue/work item from a project you need to have the Delete Issue permission within that project. Being the Administrator for the Jira project/space or the Organization administrator does not automatically give you that permission.

Because deletion of an issue is permanent and the data cannot be recovered Jira Product Administrator will often change the permission schemes of the projects to remove that permission. It is often considered preferable to set the issue to closed/done instead with perhaps a resolution to indicate it is obsolete or unneeded.

If you are the administrator for the Jira project/space you should be able to at least review the Permissions settings for the project/space to see to whom the Delete Issue permission has been granted.

If you are the Jira Product Administrator you would also have the access needed to change the permissions. But again, you may not want to do that since the data will be unrecoverable as soon as you delete the issue.

0 votes
Prachi Bolar
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
December 2, 2025

Hello,

Welcome to Community :) 

The error "You need permission from an admin first" when trying to delete a Jira issue means your user account does not have the necessary "Delete Issue" permission for that specific project.

To fix this, either a Jira administrator must grant you a project role that includes this permission, or you must ask an administrator to do so.

Thank you,

Prachi

0 votes
John Funk
Community Champion
December 2, 2025

Hi Lori,

What list are you referring to? A list of Work Items or a list of Work types? 

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