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Only I cannot delete issues in Jira

Mark Salamon

I am the admin for my company's JIRA board. I set up everything and invited others. However, for some reason only I cannot delete issues. I read somewhere that I need to be added to the project or something similar, but I cannot figure out how to do this.

Otherwise, I seem to have the same abilities as everyone else, like creating issues, updating them, etc.

Accepted answers

All comments

aakash.vijaywargiya

Navigate to the specific project where the issue exists.
Click Project settings (bottom-left panel).
Access Permissions
Select Permissions from the sidebar.
Edit the Permission Scheme
Find the "Delete Issues" permission. Click Actions : Edit (or click on the permission line). Ensure the user, group (like jira-administrators), or project role (like Administrators) is included.
Confirm Project Role Assignment
Go to People in the project settings. Make sure your user account is added with a role that has the Delete Issues permission (e.g., Administrator or a custom role included in the permission scheme).

TIP : This section has lot of permissions which can help you to manage the access as per your requirements. thanks

Rishabh Jhawar

Hello @Mark Salamon ,

Welcome to the community.

You will need delete permissions to delete issues.

Check: Project Settings >> Permissions >> Delete Issues

Regards,

Rishabh

Radka Svobodova

Hi, I guess you are not admin of jira/project, just board amin, so you have to ask your admin of project to look at project settings and find out, if you are in the correct group or role within the project to have sufficient permissions, as others suggesting where to find it.

Deivid Araujo

Hi @Mark Salamon

As @Rishabh Jhawar and @aakash_vijaywargiya mentioned, deleting an issue requires specific permissions. It's important to note that being a Board Administrator does not automatically grant the permissions needed to perform this action, as Board Administrator and Project Administrator are distinct roles.

To clarify:

Rosana Casilli

Hi @Mark Salamon

If you are already set as Administrator for the proeject, then for you to be able to delete an issue you have to have the permission to do so.

Saying that, in the permissiion section, the delete issues should be assigned to the administrator role or to your user or to a specific role where specific people can delete issues.

To do so, if you are not the jira administrator, you need to ask he/she to allow you to do so. But I know he may ask you questions to set the best solution, aligned to the best practices

Hope this helps

Regards,

Mark Salamon

I believe I am an admin of the project.

Endrina.Toncetich

Hello, I hope you are doing very well.

Look at the permissions to delete Issues in the Permission Scheme, which are usually held by Administrators, because deleting a Work Item is not reversible and the complete traceability to that Issue is lost.

That is why many times the Cancelled status is added, so that there can be a Resolution in case an Issue needs to be discarded or deprecated. In this case, I recommend talking to the admin of the instance, explaining to them why you want to delete them, and having them provide a solution.

Best regards.

Mark Salamon

I am the admin for both the project and the board.

Mark Salamon

I don't see those options.

The issue may be that I am on the free plan.

But why can everyone but me delete issues if I am the admin at all levels?

Deivid Araujo

In that case, the other responses should assist you. Please let us know if it worked for you.

Endrina.Toncetich

If you are the administrator, then you must go: Project Settings >> Permissions >> Delete Issues.

With that permission, you can delete the issues.

Radka Svobodova

there are generally at least 3 levels of admin rights - admin of board, admin of project and admin of jira, if you are admin of the first 2 but not the third one, check what kind of project it is - team managed or org managed, if org, you may not have granted sufficient right to change the permission settings, do you see the project settings > permissions? , if so, who have the permission to delete issues? roles or groups? - are you in those?

Radka Svobodova

in permissions you see the roles and groups who have the rights to delete issues > than in people you can check, if you have the precise role or assign it to you (if the permission scheme is based on roles, groups are different admin rights) Screenshot 2025-05-26 at 20.10.45.png Screenshot 2025-05-26 at 20.12.26.png

Rosana Casilli

Hi @Mark Salamon i found this question in the community: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/How-do-you-delete-issues-on-Jira-Free-plan/qaq-p/1209175

Can you check all the answers in order to find out that is maybe your case?

Mark Salamon

unfortunately, that approach does not seem to work anymore.

Karin van Driel

@Mark Salamon
Are you using a company managed project? Most of the responses I see here are for a company managed project, if you are using a team managed project, check the Access section, see what role you have and then check what permissions that role has been assigned. It is in a check box list format, rather than a permission scheme in this kind of project, looks like this :
JiraTeamManaged permissions.png

If you have the standared Admin role in the project, then you should have Delete access, but if your role is different, you might need to add the permission.

If it is a company managed project, then follow the directions provided by others, easiest way is to:
* Check permissions tab to see how delete permission is granted (by role, by user group etc.)
* Ensure you are in the relevant group or role.

As a side note, it is really not great practice to allow the deletion of issues to users. You're better off adding a 'Cancelled' status or similar, as deleting is permanent and you lose any history.

Endrina.Toncetich

This is an ongoing project and continues to function in the same way, maybe you do not have the necessary permissions.

Mark Salamon

Yes, company managed.

On the Permissions page where I would give other users permission to make this change, the "Add People" button is greyed out. However, I did manage to give one person this ability, but I cannot do so for anyone else. I'm not sure how this one person got access. (They were the first person I invited.) So I suspect there is a workaround.

But nothing anyone else has suggested has worked.

Radka Svobodova

when you have company managed - then you see in permission scheme what groups/roles have the right "delete issues" , than you can look at the person, who can delete issues, if he has the role or is in the group with such a permission, it can be also assigned to project lead in the scheme, I would go look there, and from those little info from you I assume that not all other but you in the project can delete issues, just 1 and the first project member can, so maybe it is mapped for project lead and because he was first added user, he might be the project lead.

Permissions on free jira plans are described here https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/permissions-and-issue-level-security-in-free-plans/, so it depends on you situation which we do not know.

Rosana Casilli

Hi @Mark Salamon you told us that you are in a free plan, so you can't change the permission scheme. But under that section you can check if you have the delete issues permission by clicking the permission helper button located in the up right corner of the screen.

If when you enter your user, an issue key and select the delete permission, it shows you something like a red cross, it means that you don't have the permission if it shows you a green check is that you have the permission.

I have a free plan instance and I can't do any changes to the permission scheme, but the permission scheme allow to delete people with administrator role and any logged in user.

There is anywhere else to check why you can't delete. I tested in different project in that site with free plan and I can delete, move issues.

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