How to unlink issues in bulk?

Question

I have done bulk linking of issues with the help of external system import. I tried bulk remove linking issues with the help of import but seems like it is not working....Can u please guide how can we remove link in bulk without buying any addon.

We are using jira version = v7.6.9. Is it possible to remove link in bulk with this version of jira. If yes please help out with this else can u tell with which version of jira it is possible?

Thanks & Regards,

Pratiksha.

Malaudzi, Bruce · Answer

As of February 2025 (tested on Confluence Cloud), select the entire row or column that contain the data that you want to unlink.  On the editor ribbon, select "More formatting", the select "Code" then select "Clear formatting". That's all you need.

Martin Hilbig · Answer

Question was explicitely for a solution without a paid addon. Automation is a paid addon on Server/DC. As OP posted a version number, they are on a server/dc instance, as Cloud does not have (public) versioning.

there seems to be no real path to remove issue links in bulk. I need to unlink 4,5K sub-tasks which have been erroneously linked to three user stories, and Atlassian Support suggested I do it manually through the UI, and linked to this thread for "further reading".

The only way seems to be to do it via sql queries on issuelink table - not supported or encouraged - or to use a paid addon and utilize a script.

Absolutely disappointing. To whoever may find this thread in search for answers, as I did: good luck: you need to fix it yourself.

Mikaela Bertucci · Answer

You can do this by creating an automation.