How to delete Jira user from database

Problem

It is not possible to delete a user from JIRA because the user is associated with several issues.

Cause

The user might be a reporter, assignee or commented on several issue so JIRA will not allow you to delete the user until you have removed all the user's associations.

Instead you should make use of the options available in Jira. We have implemented the Right to Erasure. This also contains the option to anonymize users, which should be always the preferred option. When anonymizing users, we’ll change or erase their personal data in: Jira Core, Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Advanced Roadmaps for Jira. Please see our documentation on Anonymizing users for these option.

Just removing the user record without removing the associated information can lead to issues, as this will cause records that are pointing to a no longer existing user account.

Workaround

It is possible, but not recommended, to forcefully delete this user from the Database without removing the user from the associated issues

1. Stop JIRA. Open the database and run the following :

2. Run this SQL

   1 2 select * from cwd_user where user_name = 'USERNAME'; select * from app_user where lower_user_name in (select lower_user_name from cwd_user where user_name = 'USERNAME');
   Replace 'USERNAME' with the affected user's username (case-sensitive).

3. Please take note of the id values of this user in both tables for step 4. The queries might return multiple rows if there are multiple directories with associated with the user, so you might need to take note of multiple ids.

4. Run this SQL to delete the cwd_user_attributes of the user

   1 delete from cwd_user_attributes where user_id=####;

   ℹ️ Replace #### with the id values from step 2.

5. Run this SQL to delete the cwd_membership of the user

   1 delete from cwd_membership where child_name='USERNAME';

   ℹ️ Replace 'USERNAME' with the affected user's username.

6. Run this SQL to delete the cwd_user of the user

   1 delete from cwd_user where user_name ='USERNAME';

   ℹ️ Replace 'USERNAME' with the affected user's username.

7. Run this SQL to delete the user from app_user

   1 delete from app_user where id = ####;

   ℹ️ Replace #### with the id from step 2 that you got for the app_user table.

8. Start JIRA