Does issue numbers matter?

salome gogolauri

I have a few questions about the issue numbers.

First, I use them for easy searching and when communicating with coworkers to easily know what issue I'm talking about.

So:
1. Do issue numbers have other uses and purposes?
2. Can I delete issues (that don't contain data) without it damaging anything? - maybe I can use them for any kind of data, or just it's more comfortable to have three-digit numbers than four-digit ones
3. Does Jira have issue number limits?

Thank you in advance!

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

1. Not really, they're just a unique identifier for the issue.  They can be used to construct URLs for external systems to link to, as well as being the unique identifier, but that's about it.
2. No.  If you delete an issue, you have damaged that issue.  Or rather destroyed it.  Deleted issues are completely gone - "damaged" to the point where you would need to go restore a backup in order to get any part of them back.  Jira does not reuse numbers for deleted issues, the hole in a project's numbering is the only indication that there used to be an issue there!
3. Technically, yes, but they're so high, your system will have eaten a server farm's worth of disks before you reach them.  I've seen projects with hundreds of thousands of issues, and Jira systems with over ten millions issues.