Is it possible to archive a Jira issue (not delete it)?

[JenD]

I have one project & board, with multiple tickets in the backlog. We are not going to work on these tickets until late 2017. I don't want to delete them, since we'll need them in the future, but I also don't want to clutter my backlog with work that we don't need to discuss (or accidentally pull into a Sprint!). 

The only possible action that I can think of to "hide" these in the backlog view, without deleting them, is to do a bulk move to a new project that I could call "Archived Project." Is there an easier solution to hide/archive within the current project that I could restore in the future?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Another project is one way to do it.

The other two options that spring to mind without coding are:

1. Set a security level on the issues so that only you or admins or people in a certain group can see them.  Remove the security level when you're ready for them to re-appear
2. Put a label or custom field on them to indicate "for later", then adjust your board filters to ignore that flag.  Remove the flag to get them back

You could combine those ideas too, although it's a bit of a faff - have a security level that uses the custom field flag to hide things (then you don't need to alter filters)

[Ranganath HV Gowda]

Another way to achieve this is configure issue security level to Archived. And set issue security level for issues to Archive issues.

Then you set users with issue security level "Archived" only to access these issues. Once your time has come to re-leave it to public, then you can remove security level of these issues and it will e open for everyone. When you start working on issue securities you'll e most happiest person.

You'll enjoy 

Rangs

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

In other words, what the answer already said.

[Jakub Uhrík]

If you want to use it with JIRA Software with Kanban (or kanplan), i like to use released version "Archive", because all issues with released versions are by default filtered out (by board sub-filter).

[weyderfs]

Total agree, option Archive it's very useful

[Joe Pitt]

You could create a status of 'On Hold' and move them to that status. When you configure the board don't show that status in any of the columns.

[JenD]

To create a new status, would I need to add it to the workflow? I suppose I could add it on the workflow, but not necessarily have anything move to or from it. I worry, though, that my users would "accidentally" move needed tickets to that status. I'll play around with it. Thanks!

[Matthew Bordas]

If you're using a Next-gen project, this is how I solved it:

You can click on the ellipses of the "Done" column and it will give the option to "Clear X Done Issues". By clearing them, it removes them visually from the board without deleting them. You can still find them by searching for "Done" issues in the Backlog.

In addition, if you're using a Roadmap with your project, you can filter your Roadmap so it hides the "Done issues".

[John Worrall]

My issue is that we've been using Jira for some 7 years, and there's a ton of crap from the long-long-ago that I'd like to get out of the system to help clean up reporting and query return times.  I don't want to just hide issues from view, I want to get rid of them - but I want to keep them in case we need to audit something down the road.

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

John, have you considered archiving those issues to PDF and store them elsewhere, or preferably in a doc. management system long term for audit requests? Jira issue archiving this way worked for a government organization that had a similar use case.

[John Worrall]

No, I hadn't thought of that.  That's a good idea, thank you.

[Jess Seitz]

Hi @JenD

Wanted to share that we just released issue-level archiving (archive individual issues, bulk edit through JQL search, or automated through APIs) in Jira Software Data Center 8.4. Here's our announcement and blog with all the details: 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Enterprise/Introducing-issue-archiving-it-s-time-for-some-Jira-spring/gpm-p/1177470

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/enterprise/issue-archiving

[ildar khakimov]

pretty disappointing that such a basic feature as archiving is available only for data center clients who, if I'm not mistaken, pay a minimum of 10k per year 

[James_McManamey]

We use labels and filters (avoiding adding a status to your workflow), to do this. 

1. Use JQL to find the issues you want to achieve (in our case anything not touched in the last 3 months)

2. Bulk add a label 

3. Update the backlog filter for your project to ignore issues with this label 

We've written up a longer post that goes through the process step by step. Hope it helps! 

https://stratejos.ai/blog/deleting-your-jira-backlog/

[kaszaq]

Depending what you mean by "need them in future" maybe archiving them using this tool would be sufficient for you? https://gitlab.com/kaszaq/jiratomkdocs/