How to delete a task in Jira

[Martin Richter]

Hi there, I am (logged in as administrator) trying to delete a task from a project, but I can't find a delete button or something else.

How can I solve this issue?

Many thanks and kind regards,
Martin

[Petr Vaníček · Accepted solution]

Hi,

you have probably missing admin group in permission scheme for project.

Follow steps mention in comment linked below and then you should be able to delete issue.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-How-can-I-give-a-user-permission-to-delete-bugs-and-tasks/qaq-p/229953/comment-id/95660#M95660

[Martin Richter]

Thx. It works. :)

[Joe Pitt · Accepted solution]

First, 

Do not delete issues. When you delete it is GONE. Hardly a week goes by without someone wanting to restore an issue. Deleting issues will come back and bite you when it is the most inconvenient. I suggest closing with a resolution value of Deleted anything you want to delete. I implement a special transition only the project lead can execute and it requires filling in a reason field from a select list (such as entered in error, OBE, Duplicate, Other) and explanation text.

Deleting issues destroys historical data. Missing issue numbers will eventually cause a question about what it was and why was it deleted even if it was done properly. Missing data always brings in the question of people hiding something that may have looked bad.

The only viable way to restore an issue is to create a new instance of JIRA and restore a backup that has the issues. Then export them to a csv file and import them to your production instance. You will lose the history.

If you still insist on deleting issues, it is controlled in the permission scheme.  I don't know why, but many new users think if they are an admin they can automatically do everything. That is an EXTREMELY POOR security model. 

Since you're new here is another potential problem:

JIRA permissions

First, by default JIRA has a horrible permission scheme that violates security best practices by allowing everyone that can logon to do just about everything.

JIRA works by GRANTING access. You can't restrict access. By default, it grants access to the group used to logon (see Global permissions to see the "can use" groups and admin groups).  This is where users are getting their access.

1. The FIRST thing you need to do to get control is to remove any groups with logon privileges from the permission scheme unless you absolutely want everyone to have that permission.
2. Then I suggest you setup Project Roles for the various functions like, tester, QA, Browse Only, etc.
3. By using project roles, one permission scheme will cover all projects. The project admin controls project role membership
4. If the project leads want everyone that can logon access to the project they can add the logon group to a project role with the desired permissions.

This may be a big effort, but it will pay off down the road by making it easy to control access.

Most of the 'old timers' use project roles. It meets the best practice for security and gives complete control to the project lead for access to their project. JIRA comes with many project roles, but you can add more if you have a special need.

[Danielle Booysen]

Telling people to not delete tickets is nanny state and patronising. What if two team members accidentally created the exact same ticket? What if vpn/internet issues cause ticket creation to bug out? And even if these things didn't happen (although they do), it's still not great to be prescriptive before answering a question. Jira is just annoying me a tad too much today.

[Ulan Akmatbekov]

That a lot of words for the answer, that doesn't even provide a solution. Just say "You can do that by ..., but it is a bad thing to do, because, in my opinion, ...".

[ksmiller99]

There are lots of reasons to permanently delete an issue. In my case it was put into the wrong project.

[Alexander Pappert]

If you really want to delete it, the button should be here:

[Linda Malcolm]

I am new to Jira and the admin on the account. Since I am just learning how to use this, I do want to delete an issue but I don't know how to get to this button? I am using the Jira Core Business Project Management Template.

[Alexander Pappert]

you need the delete permission in the permissions scheme from the corresponding project

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/managing-project-permissions-776636362.html

[Emelie]

Thank you, finally someone who wrote the actual answer. 

[Alen Demirovic]

Okay guys, i will try to post straightforward explanation. First check which group has permission to delete task within project permission scheme. If it says "administrators" for example, you need to go to groups section and open administrator group and see who is inside of it. This morning i had a request from my colleague but even tough i was admin on our Jira company page, i could not delete the task. Why was that? I figured out that my Admin role is like a super Admin role, so i can even configure who can manage stuff below me. I have simply added myself to admin group because i wasn't there (weird), and delete option was available, so i have deleted the task. 

[Margarita Levanovich]

Thank you! Quick summary:

There are 3 independent admin groups with different permissions:
jira-administrators (access to the administration features of Jira)
administrators (access to all applications and their administration features (excluding Site administration)
site-admins (access to all applications, their administration features and Site administration, which includes managing users and bills)

If Jira shows that you don't have the permission to do something, check:

Project settings - Permissions - Permission helper (right corner) - See what role/group you should have to do what you need - Add yourself to this group (Jira will provide a link)

[Mark Roberts]

Why does this have to be so hard? There was a bug with the creation of an issue and three issues were created. So I have to live with this clutter? I am an administrator and I have give my use the explicit ability to delete tasks and still can not do it.

The create another issue checkbox did not clear the fields when I hit create, so I clicked it two more times, which created three of the same issue.