How to find the unused labels in jira and delete it permanently?

[Deleted user]

Hello Team,

We are having some unused labels in our production instance. How can we find them and delete them permanently?

Any suggestions will be helpful.

Thanks,

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @[deleted] , how do you define "unused"? If a label doesn't exist on any issue then it will not exist. Now if you simply want to remove a label then use JQL to find all issues where the label is used and manually remove from each issue at which point the label will disappear from the drop-down.

[Oliver Siebenmarck _Polymetis Apps_]

Hi @[deleted] ,

Just to add two notes to the great answers that @Jack Brickey and @Marc - Devoteam already gave:

1. Even when a label is not used on any issue anymore, it might still show up in the suggestions when entering a new label. This is typically a caching issue with the user's browser and can be fixed by emptying the cache.
2. If you find yourself sifting through labels in Jira often, there are a few apps available on the marketplace to manage labels in Jira. My favorite is Project Labels, but since I work at Polymetis Apps, I am a bit biased. 

Hope that helps!

Best regards,
 Oliver

[Matt]

Simply removing the Labels and clearing the cache does not permanently remove the label from the "Recent Labels" suggestions. At least, this is the case in JIRA Cloud.

We added a Label with a spelling error. Shortly after I used Bulk Edit to add a new label with the spelling correction and removed the old label as in @Jack Brickey's suggestion. The label persisted, so I tried clearing the cache and even using an alternative fresh browser (never previously used to log into JIRA) and still the old Label persists.

Any advice?

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Matt , for sure there is some uncertainty around when the label disappears from the recent list but it "should eventually " disappear. At least it has in the past for me. Here is a supporting doc - how-to-delete-a-label-in-jira 

[Antonis Chatziantonoglou]

Hello @Matt , from my investigation, I achieved to delete completely a label with the following workaround:
1. Find the issues that use this label with a JQL query (labels = <label name>)
2. Bulk change those issues and remove the label with "Find and remove these" option
There are two lists with labels in Jira. The "All Labels" list and the "Recent Labels" list.
Some time after the actions with steps 1 & 2, the label is deleted from the "All Labels" list but still appears in the "Recent Labels" list.
And now the tricky one:
I noticed that the "Recent Labels" list takes max 5 labels that are recycled so only the last 5 used are shown.
So..
3. Use in an issue 5 labels that already exist. Put one label at a time until you reach 5.
The impact is that the "Recent Labels" list is now full with existing labels and the "unwanted" label is now "deleted" from this list also.
Please try this workaround and let me know if it helps to get rid of the "unwanted" label permanently.
Best regards,
Antonis

[Antonis Chatziantonoglou]

Hello,

For finding "unused" labels I agree with @Jack Brickey . If a label doesn't exist on any issue then it will not exist. But if you want to permanently delete a label you don't need, you could try the following:

From my investigation, I achieved to delete completely a label with the following workaround:
1. Find the issues that use this label with a JQL query (labels = <label name>)
2. Bulk change those issues and remove the label with "Find and remove these" option
There are two lists with labels in Jira. The "All Labels" list and the "Recent Labels" list.
Some time after the actions with steps 1 & 2, the label is deleted from the "All Labels" list but still appears in the "Recent Labels" list.
And now the tricky one:
I noticed that the "Recent Labels" list takes max 5 labels that are recycled so only the last 5 used are shown.
So..
3. Use in an issue 5 labels that already exist. Put one label at a time until you reach 5.
The impact is that the "Recent Labels" list is now full with existing labels and the "unwanted" label is now "deleted" from this list also.
Please try this workaround and let me know if it helps to get rid of the "unwanted" label permanently.
Best regards,
Antonis

[Marc - Devoteam]

Hi @[deleted] 

Welcome to the community

@Jack Brickey is spot on.

A label is removed from your instance if its not used in any issue.

So If you want to remove labels, search for the issues with a certain label and bulk update them to remove that label. Then the label does not exist anymore.

[Jack Brickey]

Yes and in the bulk edit select "change labels" and in the drop-down select "find and remove these".