How do I create a XML backup without the archived issues?

[Divya TV]

We want to migrate projects from source jira instance to target jira instance.

We have 300K issues archived in different projects in source jira instance.

We do not want to migrate these old archived issues in projects into target jira instance.

How do we achieve this? We do not want to use project configurator plugin.

[Andy Rusnak]

Hi Divya, 

Thanks for posting to the Atlassian Community! 

By design the full system back to the XML file will contain all archived issues.  This back up is designed to be a full system back up which can be used to restore the instance entirely. Since archived issues/projects are still stored within the database and can be unarchived they need to be included in the XML back up.  

The Project Configurator plugin is the recommended approach to export and import projects between Jira instances as noted in Migrating Projects to Another Jira Instance. This route would let you select just the unarchived projects to migrate to the new instance.

If you do not wish to use that plugin, you may be able to build a custom integration using the REST API to get issue data from one instance and then create the issue in the other instance via the API.  You could also use a JQL query and export the issues to a CSV file and then import the issues into the other instance. 

However both of these methods come with some challenges especially depending on the size and complexity of the projects that need to be exported.  For example, the order of issues being imported would need to be reviewed (parent issues may need to be created first before importing child issues they are linked to).  You may need to modify the CSV export or REST post data with the new parent data for linked issues as well.  So depending on the complexity of the project this could be a big impact.  This method also only handles the issue export/import, any other components of the projects such as Workflows, Permission schemes, Attachments etc. would need to be handled in some fashion as well.  So while you could export/import issues this way, there are significant challenges to approach depending on your complexity. 

This is why the recommended approach to export specific projects would be to use the Project Configurator plugin. Please let me know if perhaps I have misunderstood your request and I would be happy to discuss further if needed.

Best, 

Andy