Reducing custom fields in our instance

[Karim]

Our instance has *a lot* of custom fields that have collected over many years. I'm looking at ways to safely remove custom fields that are no longer needed but I'm not sure what the best approach would be.  I'm happy to use APIs to help with this but before I get started I wanted to check if there are any specific best practices someone could recommend.

[Anandhi Arumugam _Cprime_]

Hello @Karim There are a few things to consider when cleaning up custom fields.

1. See if these fields have values in any of the issues. If you remove the field, values won't show up on issues. If they have values, check with the Project admins on the impacts of removing the field and how they will be affected.
2. See the Project and Screen assignments. If the field has no issue value, remove the field from Project screens. I'd wait to see if someone complains ;)
3. Delete the field

Hope this answers your question.

You can also use apps like Optimizer for Jira to help with this process.