Restrict Suggested Labels in JIRA to Project-Specific Labels

[David Anthony Parham]

In our organization, several teams have been wondering if it's possible to restrict JIRA's suggested labels to only those actually used within a specific project. Right now, the label field suggests a wide range of labels seemingly queried from across the entire organization, making it harder to find relevant ones.

This lack of filtering reduces discoverability and forces team members to learn project-specific labels by heart, which isn't really efficient. Ideally, we'd like a way to limit suggestions to only the labels actively used within a given project.

From a technical standpoint, this seems feasible, but I haven't found a built-in solution. Any insights would be highly appreciated!

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @David Anthony Parham 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

An alternative to using a Labels field is to use a custom multiple-choice selection field. 

If you are using Company Managed projects, the list of options can be set per project by defining a Context for each project. Only Jira Administrators would be able to modify the lists, unless you want to add a third party app that would grant access to manage the fields to the Project Administrators.

For Team Managed projects custom fields can be defined that are local to the project, and the Project Administrator can manage the options that are available.

[David Anthony Parham]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, @Trudy Claspill! This workaround works exceptionally well.

[Trudy Claspill]

Great! If my suggestion is an acceptable solution please consider clicking on the Accept Answer button above my response to mark your Question as Solved.

[Karan Sachdev]

Hey David,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

Unfortunately, we don't have the option to filter label suggestions based on the project scope. A suggestion ticket has been submitted here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-23656

Thanks,

Karan

[David Anthony Parham]

Thanks for your quick response, Karan!

Wow, I didn’t realize this has been an open issue since 2011. I guess that means there's not much hope for a fix — definitely unfortunate and a bit disappointing. That said, I really appreciate you pointing me toward the original issue this quickly. Thanks again!