REST API to bulk move issues from one project to another project

[Goon Yin Chew]

I am trying to automate bulk move issues from one project to another project in Jira. However, I came across an answer posted on Dec 15, 2019, in the Atlassian Community that there is no REST API for moving issues from one project to another project. Is this still true?

Appreciate any help or advice!

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Goon Yin Chew 

Welcome to the community.

Here's the latest Jira Server version API document

https://docs.atlassian.com/software/jira/docs/api/REST/8.22.0/

I don't see a "move issue" endpoint in it.

Here's a change request asking for the functionality.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-61359

What problem are you trying to solve by executing a bulk move of issues outside of using the built-in Bulk Change process via the UI?

[Goon Yin Chew]

Thank you Trudy for the welcome and response!

Let me try to explain the problem I am trying to solve. My team had to manually bulk move 200000+ Jira tickets that were closed 6 months ago from the H24 project to the H24ARCHIVE project via the UI to archive them. Both projects have the exact same fields, but the process is very time consuming and tedious. So, I was asked to automate it.

We are moving the tickets to another project instead of archiving them within the same project because once archived, the tickets will not be available for dashboards or other reports, but they are needed on the dashboards for external customers to view. So, our work around is to move the tickets that were closed 6 months ago to the H24ARCHIVE project so they can still be viewed on dashboards and reports. 

I am new to Jira and the Atlassian suites, so if you have any better solutions, I am more than happy to hear them. Thank you in advance for your time! 

[Trudy Claspill]

Do you need to retain the history of the issue?

I've seen suggestions that automation be used to clone the issue to a new project and then delete the original issue. However that will not clone the history, comments, nor attachments.

[Goon Yin Chew]

We need to retain the history.