Export data from Jira Cloud

Create a backup of your Jira Cloud site, including attachments. Backups help you restore and recover data, or migrate to Jira Data Center.

You can export the following data to backup your Jira Cloud site: 

• Jira issues and field content (including system and custom fields)

• Board and Sprint Data

• Users and user group settings

• Comments

• Media files including media attachments, avatars, and logos (if selected)

• Project configuration data (including workflows, global permissions, schemes, screens, custom field configuration, issue types, and board configuration)

• Advanced Roadmaps

Data that can’t be exported:

• Automation rules

• Third-party apps and app data

• Jira Service Management features powered by Opsgenie, (including all content accessed through the Opsgenie URL, as well as alerts and on-call schedules)

• Assets for Jira Service Management

• Product access settings (you’ll need to add users to groups for permissions to apply).

• Views (views configuration and insights for Jira Product Discovery).

You can backup your Jira data at any time. However, if you include attachments, avatars, and/or logos, you'll need to allow 48 hours between backups.

Although automation rules aren’t automatically exported, you can manually export and import automation rules.

Create a backup for Jira Cloud

To create a backup for cloud:

1. Select Settings () > System

2. In the IMPORT AND EXPORT section, select Backup manager.

3. Under Backup for cloud, select Create backup for cloud.

You can tick the Include additional files option if you want to include issue attachments, user avatars, and project logos in the export.

After the backup is complete, select Download backup file.

Create a backup for Jira Data Center

To create a backup for data center:

1. Select Settings () > System

2. In the IMPORT AND EXPORT section, select Backup manager.

3. Under Back up for server, Select Create backup for server.

You can tick the Include additional files option if you want to include issue attachments, user avatars, and project logos in the export.

After the backup is complete, select Download backup file.

A note about team-managed projects and data center backups

Jira Cloud products are regularly updated with the absolute latest features and improvements. They run on completely different branches of development than the latest downloadable version of Jira Data Center products. Some of these features are incompatible between cloud and Data Center products.

Team-managed projects, for example, do not exist in Jira Data Center. To create a usable data center backup, you need to delete all team-managedprojects from your Jira Cloud site. Learn more about team-managed projects.

We recommend moving important issues from these projects into data center-supported project templates (those administered by schemes). To do so:

1. Create new, data center-supported projects to receive issues from each team-managed project.

2. Select Settings () > System

3. In the IMPORT AND EXPORT section, select Backup manager.

4. Under Backup for data center, select Move issues and follow the instructions to move important issues over to your new data center-supported projects.

Jira lists all your team-managed projects, links to filters that contain those projects' issues, and information about the project's owner to help you investigate what issues you may want to keep in your backup.

You can also delete all team-managed projects outright. To do so:

1. Select Settings () > System

2. In the IMPORT AND EXPORT section, select Backup manager.

3. Under Backup for data center, select Delete all team-managed projects.

Organization admins can block exports

Your organization may choose to prevent people from exporting data in particular product instances or with certain classification levels.

Structure the export file

Once you have generated and unzipped a backup file, you should have an output similar to the following:

Note that database data is stored in both activeobjects.xml and entities.xml. Issue attachments, user avatars and project logos are stored in corresponding directories. If you don't want to import attachments, avatars or logos to your new Jira Cloud site, you can remove the corresponding directory and then zip the modified directory tree before importing. 

Import backup data into Jira Cloud

1. First, we recommend splitting your cloud backup file into two separate files: a database file containing your activeobjects.xml and entities.xml, and a separate one for your attachments and other media. This can help avoid timeout errors and reduce the risk of issues when importing.

2. Once you've split your backup into separate database and media files, follow the instructions on importing issues to import them to cloud. 

3. After the import, log in to your new Jira Cloud site with the same admin account you used to log in to your original site. 

Cross-application links (links to a source file page from a Jira issue) will point back to the corresponding source location after the import.

Import backup data into Jira Data Center

1. Structure your export file as mentioned above. 

2. Follow the instructions on the Migrating from Jira Cloud to Jira Data Center page.

3. After the import, log into your Jira Data Center instance with the sysadmin username and corresponding password. 

Cross-application links (links to a source file page from a Jira issue) will point back to the corresponding source location after the import.