Can I delete Custom fields?

[Jim Randell]

I have crated some custom fields but there are two which turn out to be un-needed. Constantly seeing them is driving my PM nuts. can I go into the tables and just delete them?

[Jim Randell · Accepted solution]

...and the answer is...

Upgrading from 5.0 to 5.0.4 now gives me the option to delete. Go Figure!

[Nathaniel James Bird]

I was trying to find where this option was at also since I had added "Internal Participants" for the "Email This Issue" plugin. We're using v6.4.11 right now, and I happened to find it by using the Admin Search ('gg') to find "Custom Fields". After that I clicked on the gear (drop-down), then Screens, and found a list with most of the checkboxes empty except one, which was for the page that I had added the Custom Field to. Uncheck that and it was gone from the page next time I loaded it.

[Eva]

Have you try deleting them on the Admin -> Issues -> fields? And they still show up?

You can delete them in the database, but it's not recommended by Atlassian. But if you really wanted to, you can get the customid from customfield first, then find anyy child records in customfieldoption and customfieldvalue. I usually jsut restart JIRA afterward and reindex to make sure everything get 'refresh' but not sure if they are needed or not.

Hope this helps!

[Jim Randell]

I am sorry if I am being dense, but I just do not see that option where you mention, or anywhere else (and I have been digging). I have full admin writes and am using v5.0.

can anyone coinfirm that 'delete' is an option which shold be available? I only see 'hide' and hide does not seem to hide.

[Azwandi Mohd Aris]

Make sure you are at the Custom Fields configuration page, which is at http://JIRA/secure/admin/ViewCustomFields.jspa

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Deleting them from the database is not a good idea - if you do that, it's easy to end up with orphan data, and it's absolutely essential that you don't do it while JIra is running, and you re-index it after restarting. I can't emphasise it enough - running SQL updates on a Jira database is very risky, and really should be kept to an absolute minimum.

That said, it sounds wrong that you aren't finding "delete" as an option. As Eva says, Admin -> Issues -> Custom Fields should give you a list, as should following Azwandi's link in your install. The option to delete should be on the right (near the Edit and Configure links). I can't actually think of a way to disable that at all - all administrators should see it.

It may not appear to have worked first time though - when you delete a custom field, Jira will loop through all the issues removing the field data. If you have a large installation with lots of issues, Jira will churn through the removal, only deleting the actual field when it's cleaned up all the values on the issues. So if you go back to the field list while it's running, the field will still be shown.