How do you delete issues on Jira Free plan?

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

I'm a site & org admin in our Jira instance.

I've created a project, but can't delete issues from this project.

The common answer for this is "add yourself as a project admin" - problem is, with the free plan, project permissions are disabled. 

So... how can I delete issues in the free plan, if at all?

[Rostyslav Sipakov]

Hey there,

Below I will give my solution to this task. Trial (free) version for Jira Core.

1) Go to Project Settings>Permissions

You can see that to delete issues is possible only for users:

• Project Role (Administrators)
• Project Role (atlassian-addons-project-access)

2) Go to People (left side, under Details)

You will see the empty/blank page (see attached).

3) Click to Add people

You need to add yourself as an administrator to the project.

4) Back to project>All issues

5) Choose the required to delete the issue.

6) The Delete function will now appear in the three dots menu.

Done ;)

[Tracy Bartella-Metell]

You can also do this if you're a Site Admin through Settings -> Permission Schemes -> Find the "Delete Issues" permission and add whatever user group you'd like to that permission. 

This lets you assign Delete Issues across your whole Jira instance and to more than 1 user at a time via the user group. 

[jjg77]

None of these options work anymore with the free plan.  I see no way to delete issues under the free plan.

[Farhad M]

Hi,

did you find an option to delete a issue with a freeplan?

thanks

[Tim Gaul]

Seems like a hard no. I was merely evaluating before committing to a product - and Jira always finds a way to stuff me around.

[Farhad M]

Do you have any idea how to delete an issue with a free plan? Because non of this option are working for me.. I am using a free plan and I am site admin and I created the project

[Angélica Luz]

Hi Nir,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

To delete issues from the project, you need to open the ticket and click on … > Delete:

If you created the project, you are the administrator. You can see this information on Project settings > People.

Please, give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Regards,
Angélica

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

Hi Angélica,

Thanks for your reply. I'm afraid both options don't exist (please note that I'm an experienced Jira admin). 

(1) The "Delete" option doesn't appear in the menu, see photo:

(2) The "People" section is blocked, because we are on the free plan, see photo:

Any further assistance would be greatly appreciated,

Nir

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

@Angélica Luz - any further advice on how to resolve this? Thanks!

[Angélica Luz]

Thank you for the screenshots. 

I created a brand new project here to test and the options still show for me.

I checked and confirmed on our documentation that basic features like delete/edit issues, delete a project or change its name are still available.

Just to make sure I’m testing the same project as you, you are using a Jira Software project, is that correct?

What is the issue type?

Are you opening this ticket directly on the board, backlog or on Issues and filters?

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

Hi @Angélica Luz

Sorry for the late reply. 

The issue still persists (cannot delete issues), and now I've also noticed that none of our users has the permission to "change reporter" for issues. Not sure if this is related to the original problem with "delete" as well.

As for your questions:

1. We are indeed using a Jira Software project.
2. The issue types are custom, created by us for our own workflows (called "Aritcle", "Project" and "Update").
3. I tried opening and deleting the issue in all views suggested (directly q board / backlog / filters) - to no avail. 

Just to reiterate:  I'm a site & org admin for Jira cloud instance, and also created the single project we are working on. 

Perhaps you can access our instance directly to check out the specific problem? I can add your email if needed.

Thanks!

Nir

[Angélica Luz]

Thank you for the details, Nir.

I believe you are using a Classic project and not a Next-gen, is that correct?

If so, can you please go to Project settings > Permission to confirm if everyone has permission to delete? You won’t be able to edit, but we can see who has permission.

Also, was this project created directly on the site or it was a migration from other Cloud or Server sites?

Would it be possible to create a new project just to test if the same issue happens?

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

@Angélica Luz ,

1. Classic project, Indeed.
2. Below is a screenshot of "permissions" screen. Seems to be in order.
3. Issue does not persist when starting a new project. Seems to be specific only to the one project we are actually using :)
4. The project was created directly on the site.

How do we proceed from here?

Thanks,

Nir

[Pierre Demessence]

I had this issue too, Classic Project with a Free Plan and unable to delete issues.

But I made a new Classic Project and saw that the permissions to delete issues were not the same than the first one. And it shouldn't be my doing since being in a Free Plan I shouldn't be able to change permissions.

Here are the permissions of the first project I made (in which I couldn't delete issues):And the permissions of the second project I made (in which I could delete issues):

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

@Pierre Demessence - Thanks!

This sounds like a bug... @Angélica Luz - Is there any chance you can manually edit in the backend the permissions for our project, so deletion would be enabled?

I can create a new project, but then I'll have to migrate which I'm not sure exactly how to do, surely without creating too much interruption for the team.

[Angélica Luz]

Hi @Nir Ben-Zvi and @Pierre Demessence,

Thank you very much for the screenshots and details. I can now see what is happening.

When we create a project on the Standard plan, the permission to delete issues will be added only to administrators, and for the Free plan, it's added to everyone.

In both of your cases, when you subscribed to Jira you got the Standard plan and created the project, but then switched to the Free plan where the permissions were preserved, but no longer able to change it, that's why the first project is different from the new one where the ability to delete issue works.

This is not a bug but expected because the projects were created using different plans.

Project permissions, roles, and issue-level security in Free plans

Changing from Standard or Premium to Free

If you change from a paid plan to Jira Software Free or Jira Core Free, project permissions, roles, and issue security schemes are locked in their current state and you'll need to upgrade to a Standard or Premium plan to change them. If you had previously allowed anonymous access to projects, that anonymous access will be removed when you change to a Free plan. Jira won't change any other permissions, roles, or security schemes, as this could reveal project information that shouldn't be shared with certain users.

@Nir Ben-Zvi, can you try to upgrade your plan to Standard just to change the permissions and then switch back to Free?

You can do this by going to Administration > Billing > Manage subscriptions.

If you already used all the trial periods and can't change this back without adding payment details, please let us know.

Regards,
Angélica

[Nir Ben-Zvi]

@Angélica Luz - that did it! Thanks :)

[blackflame007]

@Angélica Luz I was also having this issue in my recent project, I created a new project and bulk moved everything to the new classic project and I was able to preform all the correct actions now. Your reply gave me the confirmation I needed for my problem Thanks