How to Export Jira Logs for Compliance Purposes

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Consider the following scenario: your compliance department urgently needs to be quickly made aware of who changed what in Jira. Perhaps a work item was removed, a workflow was updated, or a project setting just changed. All eyes are on you, the Jira admin.

Where do you start?

Jira stores much valuable information, although not in one place. There are those that are buried deep within system logs. Otherwise, they are spread in audit logs, activity tabs, and reports.

This is where it is necessary to export Jira logs not only for troubleshooting, but also for compliance audit, security, and accountability.

We are going to take a closer look at the two primary Jira logs (System Logs and Activity Logs) and demonstrate how to export them.

What Counts as a "Log" in Jira

When someone speaks about Jira logs, it could mean very different things.

Factually, Jira manages two significant categories of data:

👉 System Logs - technical background activity.

👉 Activity (Audit or History) Logs - user and admin actions.

They both have different purposes and can be both helpful depending on your objective, troubleshooting, or compliance.

🧠 System Logs

These logs capture the activity going on behind the scenes in Jira, the technical heartbeat of the instance. They assist the admins in diagnosing problems, performance monitoring, and error troubleshooting.

System logs usually contain information such as:

• Exceptions and apps’ errors.
• Server and performance monitoring.
• Installations and failures of plugins (apps).
• Database or network problems.
• Response/API requests (based on configuration).

Where to find them:

• Jira Data Center: written in atlassian-jira.log files, which are found in the Jira home directory in /log/. Log levels can be configured at Administration → System → Logging and profiling.

🔗 Atlassian Docs: Logging and profiling (Server/DC)

• Jira Cloud: admins can’t access raw system logs directly. However, you can still view limited error details via support tickets to Atlassian or the built-in audit log.

🔗 Atlassian Community: Provide the ability for Cloud Admins to access application logs

🧾 Activity (Audit / History) Logs

Activity logs include all the activities performed by the user and admins within Jira. They are the most important for accountability, compliance, and security audits.

These logs include:

• Work item changes (status transitions, comment edits, due date updates).
• Configuration changes (permissions, workflows, custom fields).
• Board or project changes.

Where to find them:

• Audit Log: Jira Settings → System → Audit Log. It displays the configuration and changes made by the admins.

Image source: Atlassian Support

• History Tab: accessible in each work item. It displays changes, such as status updates and comment edits.
• Apps such as Issue History for Jira: provide full visibility of all Jira projects’ history.

How to Export Jira Logs

Exporting System Logs

In case you are using Jira Data Center, access to system logs is possible on your server. They are saved in Jira Home /log/ folder.

The path to the folder can be located in Administration → System → System Info → Jira Home. To copy or zip these files, you will require server access, and they can’t be exported in the Jira UI.

On Jira Cloud, system logs are maintained by Atlassian and can’t be viewed directly by admins. You may still review important events via:

• Built-in Audit Log.
• Support tickets to the Atlassian team.

Exporting Activity (Audit / History) Logs

Jira has such native options: 

• Audit log (admin-level): Go to Settings → System → Audit Log, filter by date, and Export CSV.
• Work item history (user-level): Open the needed work item and go to the History tab to view field changes. To export the work item data, go to Actions and choose Export. Notice that you’ll be able to export the current work item’s field values, not the whole history of changes. 

If you need to export full change history of work items, it's better to use an app like Issue History for Jira by SaaSJet. 

The main benefits of Issue History for Jira app are:

• Export of the full change history of Jira work items. Get the entire history in Excel or CSV in only a few clicks.
• Advanced filters. View history by project, user, sprint, or date range.
• Deleted work items tracking. View the deleted tasks and restore them easily.
• Scalable to audit. Manually export thousands of Jira tasks.

How to start using Issue History for Jira app:

1. Install the app from the Atlassian Marketplace and open it from the Apps menu.
2. Apply the required filters (project, date range, etc.).
3. View a table with all historical changes related to work items.
4. Click Export → Excel or CSV.

In just a few steps, you’ll have a complete audit-ready report that you can share with managers, auditors, or stakeholders.

 🔗 Explore all the capabilities of Issue History for Jira app

Summing Up

Jira provides two major types of logs: System Logs, used to diagnose technical problems, and Activity Logs, used to track user and admin actions.

Jira Cloud users use Audit log and Atlassian Support to gain more in-depth knowledge of log files, whereas Data Center users may access them directly.

In compliance or audit reporting, native tools only present half the picture, particularly because Jira only displays each work item's current status. Apps such as Issue History for Jira make it effortless to track work item changes, ensuring complete visibility.