How can I search for issues that do NOT have a certain label

[Steve Slesinger]

I have tried various advanced searches and cannot get the syntax right. I want to look for all issues of certain status (for example, open or reopened or inprogress) but exclude any with a certain label (for example OnHold). Tried every kind of NOT but cannot get it to work. HELP please.

[Miroslav Atanasov · Accepted solution]

had the same problem, solved it this way:

status in("open","reopened","inprogress") and (labels not in("OnHold") or labels is EMPTY)

[Hieu Le Trung]

It works for me. Thanks,

[Tim van Cann]

Works perfectly

[Joshua Wold]

Worked! Thanks.

[Brendan Andrews]

The case this doesn't resolve is for issues with any other labels.

In JIRA on demand this query returns the same issues as a query returning only issues with no labels. The inclusion of not in ("XXXX") makes no difference.

[Błażej O_]

You saved my day :)

[Aneece Yazdani]

This works for me just fine on JIRA v6.4.1. I didn't think to consider EMPTY like a NULL value that requires an explicit comparison. Thanks!

[Tim Enloe]

Perfect, just what I was looking for.

[Barry Gausden]

Nice. Many thanks.

[Mike McGowan]

Words cannot express my thanks!

[Mahender Reddy Yasa]

Really saved my day thanks a lot🙂

[Jennifer Zou]

It works like a dream!!!!! Thank you very much!!!!!

[Tom Vian]

Nice.  thanks

[boardtc]

Brilliant!

[Flying High]

Top stuff.  Thanks Miroslav

[Amir Weiss]

Thanks!

[Karin Schütt]

Great help. Thanks

[Melissa Canterbury]

THANK YOU!!!!!!

[Martin Delgado]

Big help here

[Siddhant Luthra]

Awesome!

Thank you

[david_jerabek]

Thanks, works fine :) 

[Casey Cantwell]

Woot woot for this post... learned something new about JQL today.

[Santiago Leon]

With this JQL :

project = TEST AND status in ("open","reopened","inprogress") AND assignee in (usertest) ORDER BY created DESC

i have noting in "reopened" status, so the JQL is giving me an error :

The value 'reopened' doesn't exist in the field 'status'.

Do you have any idea how can i correct it ?

Thanks

[Gustavo Sant 'Anna]

It worked ! thanks a lot !

[Jens Niedrich]

Saved my day - thanks!!

[Samir Koirala]

Great answers.

[nigeljohnson73]

I have issues logged that have a "DEMO" label. operationally I want to filter these out, prety much as the OP. There wasn't a proper anser above, a couple of fragments so I eventually came up with:

    and (labels is empty or (labels is not empty and labels not in (DEMO)))

This means if it's empty, list it. If it has any label, filter out issues that have the DEMO label. Hope that clarifies things.

[Deleted user]

Nice !

[Heather Laurence]

You are my hero! 

[kathleen Walsh]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work for me.

the query is slightly more complicated:

project in (WIN) AND issuetype in (Epic, Initiative) AND status not in (Delivered, Closed, Cancelled) AND (labels not in ("Prime-Backlog") OR labels is EMPTY)

I get the same number of issues back with or without the last AND clause and get labels I don't want.

[Undead2k]

Signed up just to say thank you and upvote. Helped me with my issue! Nigel Johnson!

[Jenny Severin]

Thank you.  This helped me with my issue!  

[Andras Ujfalusi]

This makes the trick indeed: 

"

((labels is not EMPTY and labels not in (demo)) or labels is EMPTY))

"

For me the problem was before, that when I used simply the labels != demo, on top of filtering the items with "demo" labels, it as well filtered the issues with no labels.

Thx for the hint. :)

[guilherme]

Saved my life! Thank you!

[Jeppe Dam Sørensen]

Nice :-)  

I used it the other way:

(labels is EMPTY or labels not in (Household))

which worked, BUT I dont understand why the to test for EMPTY is necessary. 

[Rade Knezevic]

Thanks in 2020 one more time :)

[Marius Kurseth]

Still relevant in 2022, thanks alot!

[thomas tulinsky]

May be caused by the problem I report in

https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/174362/search-with-not-requires-and-contrary-to-documentation

Seems to search for A and not B, you must say

A AND NOT B

not

A NOT B

which the documentation says.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Try

status in ("open","reopened","inprogress") and labels not in ("OnHold")

[Steve Slesinger]

I tried adding a screen shot but it isn't showing...I'll try converting to JPG

[Steve Slesinger]

It takes it but says no issues found, and there ARE issues with that label!!!

[Steve Slesinger]

Notice, I can use "in" to find ones with the label, and it works, but the "not in" returns no entries, when there should be LOTS.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

When you say NOT in, it will find issues without that label but in the mentioned statuses. Are you saying you have issues in those states without the label?

[Steve Slesinger]

I added the picture, but cannot see the attachment???

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

I would raise the issue with Atlassian support.

[Steve Slesinger]

PS. In Progress is two words, I fixed that.... still doesn't work

[Steve Slesinger]

Correct. I have many issues in those statuses without that label. They either have NO label, or some other label, but the query returns NO entries whatsoever.

[Ian Tait]

This does not work for me even a little bit.

How can I say that the text field does not contain a specific string?

This is for INCLUDING the text "missing":
project = MYPROJECT AND status = "To Do" AND assignee in (EMPTY) AND reporter in (jiramail) AND text ~ "missing" ORDER BY created DESC

How can I tweak this to make it show me issues that DO NOT INCLUDE the text "missing"?

[Brian Mackey]

Actually for me this worked:


labels not in (DEMO) OR labels is EMPTY

The OR clause is critical

[Jordi Federico]

I had same issue. Had difficulties to filter Labels. I am using version 7.5.3

(labels not in (X,Y) or labels is EMPTY ) and status in (Backlog, Analysis).

Adding the "labels is empty" helped.

[Tim McGrath]

Problem is correctly identified above by Thomas Tulinksy. Beware that adding "labels is empty" appears to help (i.e. you suddenly see results, hurrrah) but does not show any issue that has a different label (e.g. "Z")

To overcome it, you must use the AND NOT exactly as Thomas described.

Status in (Backlog, Analysis) AND (NOT labels in (X,Y) OR labels is EMPTY) ORDER BY LABELS ASC

[Pete Jones]

That helped a lot, thanks

Pete

[Mahender Reddy Yasa]

Really saved my day thanks a lot☺

[Nithya Priyaa Bommannan]

Thanks for your help  This helped me with a query I was trying to get to work.

status in ("current sprint") AND (labels not in ("Tasking") OR labels is EMPTY)

[Alexander Fedtke]

Great works you both made my day!

[Nitram]

Hi

Check this, may be usefull for you,

https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/73065/labels-does-not-contain-is-not-working

Hope this helps.

[Alexander Fedtke]

Hi

tried this as well without sucess.

I got zero results back even if i have issues from that project without label = xy

I am using JIRA 5.2.1

Any more suggestions?

[Michael Knight]

Try

project = A AND (labels NOT IN (xy) OR labels IS EMPTY)

It behaves like SQL's NULL, where any comparison involving NULL (except for IS NULL) is false.

[Alexander Fedtke]

Hi,

How do i get all issues without a specifc label xy

the query

project = A AND not labels = xy

is not workiing

can anyone help?

[Michael Knight]

Maybe try

project = A AND labels NOT IN (xy)