Too many issues

This insight is shown when your current number of issues (excluding archived issues) exceeds 5,000,000, which we consider as the recommended max.

Why is there a problem with too many issues?

Having too many issues in total can affect Jira speed and responsiveness. This is not a hard limit – you can exceed it, however we feel the recommended max reflects where your site will begin to experience degraded performance. We’ve chosen the value based on our performance data.

What’s the recommendation?

Your goal is to reduce the total number of issues below the limit. Here are actions you can take:

  • Archive inactive issues

  • Use the site optimizer after the migration


Archive inactive issues

Identity inactive issues

When viewing this insight from the dashboard, select the first View inactive issues in Jira link. It will open your Jira instance, with a JQL query returning issues older than 24 months.

If you’d like to do that manually, go to Issues > Search for issues, and use the following JQL query:

updated <= -104w ORDER BY updated ASC

Archive inactive issues in bulk

To archive inactive issues returned by the JQL query:

1. When viewing the list of issues, select Tools > Bulk Change: All <Number> issues.

Bulk Change option shown in the Tools drop-down.

2. Select all issues you want to archive, then select Next.

List of selected issues in the Bulk Operation screen.

3. Select Archive issues, then Next.

4. Confirm the action and wait until your issues are archived.

Archived issues will disappear from Jira search and boards, and won’t be counted in the total number of issues when you upload new results to the dashboard. You can find archived issues in Issues > Archived issues.

When it comes to issue links, they will still work – the archived issues will be displayed as read-only.

Sample archived issues in Jira.

Learn more about archiving issues


Use the site optimizer after the migration

The site optimizer allows you to archive chosen issues in bulk. Since you’ll be choosing issues based on JQL queries, it’s not much more automated than the manual steps described above. The bulk archiving will be easier and faster, but you can only use it on the cloud side, after the migration.

To archive issues with site optimizer:

  1. Open Jira Cloud.

  2. Go to Settings > System > Site optimizer.

Learn how to archive issues with site optimizer

Still need help?

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