What is best way to delete unused custom fields from JIRA System ?

[Ramesh Udari1]

Hi ,

Recently we have deleted couple of un projects from our jira instance, but its configurations are still prasent in jira instance. So now we dicided to clean up all configuration metadata which is not used in system. As part of this excersise first we targeted custom fields, so what is best way to delete custom fields from jira instance and how to identify whether customfield is being used in any project or not ?.

[Andre Lehmann]

Hi Jonson,

in our environment we go from the big scheme towards the smaller configurations.

So here are our steps to "clean" jira:

1. delete old/inactive Jira-Projects (archive xml, excel,attachments)
2. workflows
   1. look at inactive Workflow-Schemes and delete them
   2. look at inactive workflows and delete them
3. Screens
   1. look at issuetype-screen-schemes that doesn't have an assigned project and delete them
   2. look at fieldscreen-schemes that doesn't belong to any issuetype-screen-scheme and delete them
   3. tricky: look at fieldscreens which doesn't have any workflow or fieldscreen-scheme and delete them
4. fields
   1. look at fieldlayout-schemes without a project and delete them
   2. look at fieldlayout without fieldlayut-scheme and delete them
   3. tricky: look at customfields without context and fieldlayout and delete them

Not easy and fast, but it works :-)
We are doing that "great cleaning" twice a year.

[Hemant]

Hi Andre,

Do you have any automatic script to do the same.

Thanks,

Hemant

[Himal Gurung [AC]]

Hello,

The Cleaner for Jira app provides a way to see the number of Projects that are using each Custom Field, from there you can find out which Projects they are used in and make a decision as to whether it should be deleted or not. 

The app can be found on the Atlassian Marketplace and currently supports both the Server and Cloud versions of Jira: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/co.uk.jackgraves.jira-optimiser/server/overview

[Alexey Dorofeyev]

This can be done using Custom Fields Usage plugin

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/systems.npe.jira.cfu/server/overview

[Mirek]

Andre Lehmann procedure it pretty similar to what I used in my instance.. To know which custom field is used I installed this plugin - https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/pl.com.tt.admintoolsforjira.AdminToolsForJira. It was very helpful for me to delete couple of custom fields without digging into database.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

You can go to the issue navigator advanced searching and check if there are any issues using the custom field or not, using the following query.

"custom field name" is not EMPTY

If there are no results, the field is probably not used. If there are results, verify the validity.

[MattS]

I use "custom field name" is not EMPTY order by updated desc so I see the last time that anyone put a value in the custom field

[vitaliy zapolskyy]

This will not help to find issues from the projects where Permission Scheme doesn't grant you browse project permission/hidden with Issue Security