3 Ways to Manage and Recover Deleted Tasks in Jira

What happens to a Jira task after you delete it? Is it possible to find or restore deleted tasks? If you are looking for answers to these questions, keep on reading. The fact is that Jira does not come with a built-in recycle bin. Let’s look at what workarounds we have to find deleted Jira tasks and get them back to the project.

You will find out:

• What options do you have to control deleted tasks
• Who and when deleted your tasks
• How to restore your deleted Jira tasks

Looking for a way to delete Jira tasks? Check out how to delete tasks from Jira.

Manage your deleted tasks in Jira

Jira only allows users with the necessary project rights to delete tasks. A deleted task is no longer accessible or viewable since the database has deleted it. All information related to the problem, including comments or attachments, will be removed and lost forever. However, occasionally deleted tasks could still have important information that’s vital to the success of the team or project.

💡 Workaround 1: Disable “delete” permissions

The most typical advice is just to grant admins access to delete tasks and to turn off permission for everyone else. This solution will provide you with an option to control who can delete a task. However, it does not resolve the problem entirely. Some businesses are subject to stringent auditing laws (e.g., CFR 21 Part 11). One of them is to see if any records have been removed.

💡 Workaround 2: Back up your Jira project

If you’ve created a backup of your project, you can create a fresh JIRA instance and import the tasks from the backup. Before being imported into the production instance, the tasks must first be exported to a CSV file. Note that the task history won’t be saved. 

💡 Workaround 3: Find Jira plugin to recover deleted tasks

Test the apps available through the Atlassian Marketplace. You can get plugins that keep or recover deleted items and guard against losing important data. For a specific functionality to swiftly restore your tasks, take a look at Issue History for Jira from our SaaSJet team. Try it free for 30 days.

Restore deleted task in Jira Cloud

There are various plugins available. Some can just save deleted tasks, while others can restore any task to the project. Issue History for Jira has got it all. So, you can keep, manage and restore your deleted Jira tasks.

The app helps to find out:

• What task was deleted, and when?
• Who deleted it?
• How to recover any deleted task?

+ Plus, you will get a diary of all past activities for any dates you need.

What customers say:

Read more feedback from customers

How to recover a deleted tasks using Issue History for Jira

The storage procedure needs to be activated after the app has been installed:

1. Activate the toggle for “Keep deleted work items.” Every task that is deleted after that will be saved.
2. Choose Deleted work items from the drop-down selection under Filter tasks by. A list of all removed tasks is available there.
3. Hit the Restore button. When you move your mouse over the task, it shows up.
4. When you press it, the card preview window will display, allowing you to see how the task will appear after recovery.
5. Your task will be restored right away when you click the Restore button to confirm your choice.

Restoring deleted parent/subtask

What happens if someone deletes a parent task together with several child tasks? It’s also possible to restore them. The option works both ways. So, every time you restore a subtask, you can also restore the parent task, and vice versa: when you restore the parent, you can recover all of the subtasks.

Restoring deleted parent/subtask Comparing plugins for tracking deleted tasks

The Issue History for Jira app is a detailed journal that allows you to keep track of deleted tasks and record modifications to tasks or create Jira change history report. Let’s review it in comparison to other Jira Cloud plugins.

Takeaway

So, Jira doesn’t have a built-in recycle bin for tasks that have been deleted. Because of this, if you want to save your data, you should think about and prepare in advance. If you want to save and restore deleted tasks, control permissions, and obtain a complete history of task activity, Issue History for Jira is a great option.