Attachment Folder getting too big to manage

Question

We have been using Jira for many years now, and are currently still using version 3. Is there anything in version 3 or the new Jira 5 that can help with this issue. For example, allowing it to delete attachment after a certain time period once an issue becomes closed, or an attachment manager of some sort.

We liked this because we are having a problem with diskspace due to the attachment folder getting way too big. But we can't just delete folders without knowing whether those issues have been closed. How have you guys managed attachment effectively?

Renjith Pillai · Answer

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRAKB/Managing+Attachments+in+JIRA

Naren3 · Answer

Thanks Dieter, we have a scenario where we want to move all the older attachments for 
the issues which are closed and not updated for more than a year, to a backup device, using the script. Also we need to make it available in the production environment on the customers request, using the script.

I am working on the approach you mentioned above. What would be the pros and cons for such approach.Also can you share an example for such scenario.

Dieter · Answer

So far i haven't discovered anything that makes attachment handling better in Jira 5 than in Jira 4. i'm still hoping for a way to archive projects and still keeping them searchable. But returning to your problem: you could implement a post function (e.g. Using the groovy script runner plugin)  which removes all attachments from an issue. 
Then just add a transition from state closed to closed which calls this post function. using bulk transition you might now apply this transition to a filtered set of closed issues, e.g. issues that have been updated last year and before only.
one also could imagine a global transition which by definition is available in all states automatically and leads back into the same state. Of course such a global transition should only be available for some administrators (write a condition for that) and maybe as a safety feature the post function should make sure not to remove attachments from unresolved issues.