I am trying to get list of users in jira through rest api

[Ankit kharola]

I am trying to get a list of users in jira i am using the api 

/rest/api/3/users/search  but it doesnt return a total that is the total number of users  and it also has a maxCount of 50 so how do we get a list of all the users in jira if we want to?

[Akash Singh]

@Ankit kharola  

The /rest/api/3/users/search endpoint in Jira is paginated, meaning it only returns a limited number of users per request (default maxResults is 50). To retrieve a full list of users, you'll need to paginate through the results by incrementing the startAt parameter in each request until all users are fetched.

Here’s the general approach to do this:

1. Start with startAt = 0.
2. Make a request to /rest/api/3/users/search.
3. Use the maxResults parameter to control how many users you retrieve per page (up to 100).
4. Continue making requests while the number of users in the response equals maxResults. Each time, increase startAt by maxResults.

Here’s a pseudo-code example:

startAt = 0 
maxResults = 50 
allUsers = [] 

do { 
  response = makeRequest("/rest/api/3/users/search?startAt=" + startAt + "&maxResults=" + maxResults) 
  users = response.get("values") // Extract the list of users 
  allUsers.addAll(users) 
  startAt += maxResults 
} while (users.size() == maxResults) 

// allUsers now contains the complete list of users

Let me know if you need further clarification! 😊

[Ankit kharola]

hello @Akash Singh  when we are fetching issues we also get a total field which tells us the total number of issues there so we can run a while loop to get all the issues at once and in this case we are setting the maxResults and then fetching users based on that but is it a possibility that the number of users will be more than the maxresults we have set. how can we make sure we fetched all the users that exist? like in issues we get a total count so we know how many we have to fetch but in this case we dont have that

[Akash Singh]

@Ankit kharola My previous response did not account for the total attribute when determining if the API has stopped returning results. Below, I’ve outlined two approaches to handle pagination—both are correct, but it's worth noting that you may need to update your logic in the future as Atlassian plans to transition from index-based to cursor-based pagination.

1. Pagination Logic Without total:

   • Keep making requests and collecting results while the response size equals maxResults.
   • If the last response contains fewer than maxResults items, it means you've reached the end of the dataset.
   • In edge cases where the last page contains exactly maxResults, an additional request will be made. This will return an empty result, confirming you've fetched all users.

2. Using total Field :

   • If the API provides a total field, it simplifies pagination.
   • You can calculate the total number of pages required as:
     

     total_pages = total​ / maxResults

   • Fetch data for exactly that many pages. This avoids the additional request with no results.

Here is an example Python script that implements the logic with total field.

import requests from requests.auth 
import HTTPBasicAuth 
import json 

# Parameters 
endpoint = "https://mysite.atlassian.com/rest/api/3/users/search" # API endpoint 
auth = HTTPBasicAuth("email@example.com", "<api_token>") # Authentication details 
headers = {"Accept": "application/json"} # Request headers 
max_results = 50 # Set maxResults value 
startAt = 0 

# Initialize list to store all users 
all_users = [] 

# Make the first API request to get users and total 
response = requests.request( 
  "GET", 
  endpoint, 
  headers=headers, 
  auth=auth, 
  params={"maxResults": max_results, "startAt": startAt} 
) 

# Parse the response 
response_data = json.loads(response.text) 
users = response_data # Adjust this if the user data is inside a key like "values" 
all_users.extend(users) 

# If the total field exists, use it to calculate total pages 
total = response_data.get("total", 0) # Fetch total users if available 

if total > 0: 
  total_pages = (total // max_results) + (1 if total % max_results != 0 else 0) 
  
  # Fetch remaining pages 
  for page in range(1, total_pages): # Start from 1 as first page is already fetched 
    startAt = page * max_results 
    response = requests.request( 
      "GET", 
      endpoint, 
      headers=headers, 
      auth=auth, 
      params={"maxResults": max_results, "startAt": startAt} 
    ) 
    users = json.loads(response.text) 
    all_users.extend(users) 

# Output the total users fetched 
print(f"Total users fetched: {len(all_users)}")