Bulk Links
Link, relink and unlink Jira issues in bulk, with undo. Jira Cloud can't add or change issue links in a bulk change. Bulk Links does it for every issue in a search or a selection: link them all to one or more issues, change a link type, reverse links made the wrong way round, or remove links. You see exactly what will change before anything does, and every run can be undone.
Where to find it
- Issue search: select issues (or none, for the whole search), then open the Apps menu above the results and pick Bulk Links.
- Apps menu: Apps → Bulk Links in Jira's top navigation, where you type a JQL search.
What it does
| Tab | What happens | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Link issues | Links every issue to up to 20 issues, with the link type and direction you pick. | Every bug in release 2.4 is blocked by OPS-12. |
| Change link type | Changes the issues' links of one type to another type, optionally reversing them. | Turn every "relates to" link to the platform project into "blocks". |
| Remove links | Removes the issues' links of one type, or of any type. | Remove the "clones" links a migration left behind. |
| History | Your runs from the last 30 days, with their results and an undo for each. |
For changing and removing, Only links to issues matching narrows the work to links whose other end is in a second JQL search, for example project = OPS. Direction picks which way round the link points from your issues.
How a run works
- Preview. Bulk Links reads the issues and their links and lists the changes it would make. Nothing changes yet. Links that already exist, and links from an issue to itself, are left out.
- Run. Changes are made a few at a time, with a progress bar. Each one is checked against Jira's current links just before it's made, so a link someone else added or removed since the preview is skipped, not duplicated.
- Undo. Every run can be undone from its result or from History. Undo only touches the links that run made, changed or removed. Undo the newest run first when you undo several.
If you close the page during a run, it pauses. Open History and click Resume to carry on, or Stop to end it there (what was done can still be undone).
Permissions
Bulk Links works as you. Jira checks your own permissions for every change: you need Browse projects for the issues and Link issues in their projects. Changes show in each issue's history under your name. Your runs and their undo are private to you.
Limits
- Up to 1,000 issues per search, up to 20 issues to link to, and up to 5,000 changes per run. Split bigger jobs into parts, for example by project or by created date.
- The "only links to issues matching" search can match up to 5,000 issues.
- Jira needs a restriction in the search:
order by createdon its own is refused,project = WEB order by createdworks. - History and undo are kept for 30 days. A preview you don't run is dropped after a day.
- Issue linking must be switched on (Jira settings → Issues → Issue linking).
- Remote links (web links and Confluence pages) aren't changed.