Finding and exporting your Jira data

What it holds

Jira holds work items with descriptions, comments, status changes and custom fields. Boards, sprints, attachments and project configuration provide the surrounding delivery context.

Where Jira shows the size

1. Use an account with browse access to every relevant project; administrative status alone may not grant that visibility.
2. Open Filters and the all-work-items search, switch to JQL, and run ORDER BY created ASC without other conditions.
3. Read the result total; the first returned item identifies the earliest creation date.

Plan and admin role. Search works on every Jira Cloud plan and respects project browse permissions. Backup manager requires a Jira admin; organization-level data protection policies may prohibit exports.

Exporting the full history

1. Open Settings > System > IMPORT AND EXPORT > Backup manager.
2. Under Backup for cloud, choose Create backup for cloud and enable Include additional files for attachments, avatars and logos.
3. Download the completed ZIP containing entities.xml, activeobjects.xml and the attachment data directory.
4. For smaller selections, run JQL and choose More actions > Export > Export CSV - all fields.

Site backups include work items, comments, fields, boards, sprints, user settings and project configuration, but exclude rule-based workflows, third-party app data and Assets. Export supported rule-based workflows separately.

Backups that include additional files require a 48-hour interval. From January 22, 2026, Backup manager accepts restores only from backups no older than 30 days.

Single-request CSV exports allow 1,000 work items; asynchronous exports allow 10,000. Split larger sets by project or date. Comments occupy separate columns, and attachments are URLs rather than files.

Premium and Enterprise offer Atlassian Backup and Restore with attachments through admin.atlassian.com, requiring both organization-admin and app-admin permissions.

You don't need to run an export to talk to us, and there's no need to clean it first — removing personal data is part of our work.