How can I bulk delete user accounts?

[Megan Hutchinson]

We haven't had anyone actively "managing" the user accounts for quite some time and now I am trying to clean things up.  With over 250 deactivated accounts that need to be deleted (users are no longer employed at our company so no reason to keep them) it is a daunting task to consider having to manually go into each one and click "Delete".  Any help would be greatly appreciated!!  

[Ste Wright · Accepted solution]

Hi @Megan Hutchinson 

Natively, you can't delete users in bulk - there is a feature request for this though you can vote for/watch - see: ID-6206 

There are a few alternatives though, including...

1. Use this free App, called BulkOps
2. Use the REST API
3. Use another App from the Marketplace (note - some are paid) - for example, Manage Users for Jira Cloud, Advanced User Manager, etc

For options (1) and (2), there are detailed instructions on how to use them on this help page - this is also why I split (1) from (3).

There's also this article which details how to use BulkOps for this action

Ste

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Just to weigh in on this, if you need an app you can always see if the trial isn't enough already for you in case this is a one off.

Secondly tho, think carefully about deleting users as the references to them in your system will most likely convert to "Former User" and you'll lose the historical data.

[John Isherwood]

You make a good point Dirk. We use this app to deactivate product licenses for users without removing them from the system:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1224410/manage-users-for-jira-cloud?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

This helps us manage our product licences efficiently if users haven't been using the products for a month or more

[Hari V]

This resource might help you. Remove multiple users from your Atlassian Cloud Site 

[Dave Menconi]

The important thing is to develop a process for removing users and socialize it and get it agreed to. I know that's really hard but it will pay off over time, especially if you do it BEFORE you have hundreds of users. 

Think about how long a user can be inactive before you take action and what that action is: maybe you can just deactivate them which makes it much less problematic. 

Also should you warn them first?

[Steve Rhodes]

I can also recommend the BulkOps app, and have used it extensively. However, you will need to edit the user export CSV to include only the accountId and name, and for people mass deleting users you will need to chop up the CSV into no more than 4000 users, as there is an 1800 second timeout. I found that deleting 1000 users took approx 15mins but this depends on the Atlassian servers handling the API calls so your mileage my vary. Check out this page for documentation on deletion https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Bulk-deletion-of-Jira-users-or-Customer-users/ba-p/1645847