How to find the unused labels in jira and delete it permanently?

[Deleted user]

Hello Team,

We are having some unused labels in our production instance. How can we find them and delete them permanently?

Any suggestions will be helpful.

Thanks,

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @[deleted] , how do you define "unused"? If a label doesn't exist on any issue then it will not exist. Now if you simply want to remove a label then use JQL to find all issues where the label is used and manually remove from each issue at which point the label will disappear from the drop-down.

[Oliver Siebenmarck _Polymetis Apps_]

Hi @[deleted] ,

Just to add two notes to the great answers that @Jack Brickey and @Marc Koppelaar already gave:

1. Even when a label is not used on any issue anymore, it might still show up in the suggestions when entering a new label. This is typically a caching issue with the user's browser and can be fixed by emptying the cache.
2. If you find yourself sifting through labels in Jira often, there are a few apps available on the marketplace to manage labels in Jira. My favorite is Project Labels, but since I work at Polymetis Apps, I am a bit biased. 

Hope that helps!

Best regards,
 Oliver

[Matt]

Simply removing the Labels and clearing the cache does not permanently remove the label from the "Recent Labels" suggestions. At least, this is the case in JIRA Cloud.

We added a Label with a spelling error. Shortly after I used Bulk Edit to add a new label with the spelling correction and removed the old label as in @Jack Brickey's suggestion. The label persisted, so I tried clearing the cache and even using an alternative fresh browser (never previously used to log into JIRA) and still the old Label persists.

Any advice?

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Matt , for sure there is some uncertainty around when the label disappears from the recent list but it "should eventually " disappear. At least it has in the past for me. Here is a supporting doc - how-to-delete-a-label-in-jira 

[Marc Koppelaar]

Hi @[deleted] 

Welcome to the community

@Jack Brickey is spot on.

A label is removed from your instance if its not used in any issue.

So If you want to remove labels, search for the issues with a certain label and bulk update them to remove that label. Then the label does not exist anymore.

[Jack Brickey]

Yes and in the bulk edit select "change labels" and in the drop-down select "find and remove these".