Search for issues in a team-managed project

This page is for team-managed projects

If the lower-left of your project sidebar says you're in a company-managed project, check out these company-managed project articles instead.

Learn more about the difference between company-managed and team-managed projects.

 

When you search for issues in a project, you can use the text search and field filters to quickly find an issue or a set of issues in your project.

Before you begin, you’ll need to enable the issue navigator for your project.

In a project, you could search for all issues that:

  • are bugs

  • are assigned to Jane

  • were reported by Fred

  • are in the in progress status

  • have “pizza” in a text field

The issue navigator page with a list of issues and an issue selected. There is a text field and other filters.
  1. The Issues link in the project sidebar

  2. The list of issues in the issue navigator

  3. Issue field filters

  4. The link to advanced search

  5. List view or Detail view toggle

  6. Basic or JQL toggle

Learn more about searching in Jira Cloud.

Enable the project issue navigator

The project issue navigator lets you view a list of the issues in your project, and filter them to find what you need. You can search for one or more issues using the text search field and built-in filters.

 

To enable the issue navigator for your team-managed or company-managed project:

  1. Go to Project settings > Features.

  2. Toggle on the switch for Issue navigator.

You can toggle this feature on and off any time without affecting any of your project’s issues.

 

Search for issues in a project

You can view a list of the issues in your project, and filter them to find what you need. You can search for one or more issues using the text search field and built-in filters.

Before you begin, you’ll need to enable the issue navigator for your project. Your search results are ordered from the newest to oldest (by created date) by default.

To find issues in your project:

  1. From your project’s sidebar, select Issues.

  2. Use the text search field or More+ to define your search criteria.

  3. Order and sort the issues using the options at the top of the list of issues.

  4. Select an issue to view or edit it.

  5. Select Reset to clear your search criteria.

We don’t support filtering for all fields in the project issue navigator just yet, but we’re working on it. Select Go to Advanced search for more filtering options.

To broaden your search to more projects, select the Project dropdown and pick your projects. Alternatively, you can also select Go to advanced search.

If you're searching against a field, you can select Show full list to view the list of available options against your search criteria. If your list is too long, you can start typing to get to your option faster.

Search for issues using JQL in a project

You can build structured queries using the Jira Query Language (JQL) to search for issues in a project. You can specify criteria that you can't define in the quick or basic searches (the ORDER BY clause, for example). 

JQL is not a database query language, even though it uses SQL-like syntax. Learn more about advanced JQL search.

To search for issues using JQL:

  1. From your project’s sidebar, select Issues.

  2. If you're in the Basic search mode, select JQL.

  3. Enter your JQL query.

  4. Press Enter or click to run your query. Your search results will be displayed in the issue navigator.

As you type your query, Jira will offer a list of "autocomplete" suggestions based on the context of your query. The autocomplete suggestions only include the first 15 matches, displayed alphabetically, so you may need to enter more text if you can't find a match. Jira will also let you know if there’s an error in your query.

Using JQL, you could search for all issues in your project “Assassin’s guild” that:

  • have “weaponry” in a text field, and

  • are ordered by when they were created in ascending or descending order

Search for issues using JQL
  1. Basic or JQL toggle

  2. JQL editor

  3. Expand/Collapse editor

  4. Syntax help

  5. Search button

  6. Line numbers when your JQL query is longer than a line

  7. Autocomplete suggestions based on context

Save your search as a filter

You can save your frequently used search criteria as filters. For example, if you often search for issues that are unassigned, then you can save a filter for this search, so that you don’t have to set the search criteria every time you want to run it. You can select the filter instead to see all issues that are unassigned.

To save a search criteria as a filter:

  1. From your project’s sidebar, select Issues.

  2. Use the text search field or select More + to define your search criteria.

  3. Select Save filter, and give your filter a name and description.

If you want to share the search criteria of a filter with your teammates, select Share. Learn how to share your search criteria.

Share your search criteria

You can share your search criteria with your teammates. For example, you can track all the issues that are in progress, and share this criteria so that your teammates can track them as well.

To share your search criteria in a project:

  1. From your project’s sidebar, select Issues.

  2. Use the text search field or select More + to define your search criteria.

  3. Select Share.

  4. Enter the username, team name or email address, and select Send. Alternatively, you can select Copy link to share with your team.

Want to come back to issues that are assigned to you later? You can also save the search criteria with the browser bookmark to visit your issues later on. Learn how to bookmark issue search results.

We don’t support filtering for all fields in your project just yet, but we’re working on it. If your query is too complex, select Go to Advanced search for more filtering options.

Bookmark issue search results

You can bookmark and share your refined issue searches with your teammates. For example, you can track all the issues that are in progress and come back to them later when you bookmark them. You can also share this URL with your team so that they can track them as well.

Your teammates need to have access to the issues and projects in the search results so they can view them when you share the URL.

To bookmark or share your issue search in your project:

  1. From your project’s sidebar, select Issues.

  2. Use the text search field or select More + to refine your search criteria.

  3. Save the query with a browser bookmark, or share the URL with your team.

We don’t support filtering for all fields in your project just yet, but we’re working on it. If your query is too complex, select Go to Advanced search for more filtering options.

Configure fields as columns

Customize your view to see your most important fields in the list view.

To configure fields as columns:

  1. From your project’s sidebar, select Issues.

  2. Select Configure columns in the left corner.

  3. Select the fields you want to see along with your issues.

You can change the order your fields are shown in the list view. To reorder your fields as columns, simply drag and drop the column to your preferred position.

We’re still building support for all fields to be used as columns in your project. Select Go to Advanced search or Switch to the old issue search to use all fields.

 

Additional Help