Deleted Tasks
Asked by ADEM KARATEPE:

For a few months, we have been using Jira with a team of 5 people. We took a week off as a team due to a national holiday. When we returned, we were shocked to see that many tasks in Jira were deleted. What could be the reason for this? Is it possible to recover the old tasks? How can we prevent this from happening again?"


Answers:
author: Yuliia_Borivets__SaaSJet_
body: Hi [@ADEM KARATEPE](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5281769)

When an issue is deleted from Jira, it can no longer be accessed or viewed.

So, there is no way to restore previously deleted tasks, you can only prepare to avoid this problem in the future.

### Possible workarounds {#toc-hId-2057896761}

* **Back up your projects.** Find instructions here: [Jira Cloud - Restore Issues \& Site from Backup](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Jira-Cloud-Restore-Issues-amp-Site-from-Backup/ba-p/1772178)
* **Get the app** from the Atlassian Marketplace and start tracking your deleted tasks. For instance, you can try **Issue History for Jira** (developed by my team), which has a special option to recover your issues. You can [try how it works free for 30 days](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1220385/issue-history?hosting=cloud&tab=overview&utm_source=Atlassian_Community&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Comment_Deleted-Tasks_20230801).

comments: author: ADEM KARATEPE
body: Thank you Yuliia


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

A human has deleted your tasks, there's nothing you can do about that unless you have been taking backups.

To prevent it, edit your permissions - remove everyone's ability to delete issues.

comments: author: ADEM KARATEPE
body: Thank you Nic


author: John Funk
body: Hi Adem - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

No, unfortunately once they are deleted, they are gone. If you have a backup from a particular date, you could try to retrieve, but you would lose all of the recent changes.

For the future, I would get an app like the Revyz Back and Restore app which will let you restore deleted granular issues and/or projects.

comments: author: ADEM KARATEPE
body: Thank you John


author: Trudy Claspill
body: Hello [@ADEM KARATEPE](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5281769)

How did you determine that the tasks were deleted?

There is functionality to "hide" tasks on a kanban board that have been done for more than a specified period of time .

Are you sure that the tasks were actually deleted, or are they just no longer displayed on a board or in a report?

Have you trying searching for the missing issue by issue key? Or by using the **View all issues** screen to bring up all the issues in the affected projects?


author: Sravan Indukur
body: cant we track through audit log

comments: author: Trudy Claspill
body: [@Sravan Indukur](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5301477)

Refer to this article for more information about what is tracked in the audit log.

<https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/audit-activities-in-jira-applications/>

It does not include every activity related to individual issues.


author: Sravan Indukur
body: Thanks for the info [@Trudy Claspill](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3569011)

Now my doubt is,

in this scenario what ADEM have explained, how can we track, how the issues were deleted.


author: Trudy Claspill
body: You can't track how issues were deleted natively.

If you want to manage deletion of issues more securely you need to make changes to your configuration.

Take away the Delete Issues permission from users in the permissions associated with projects. Limit the ability to delete issues to only trusted administrators.

Add some sort of custom field to all your issues that allows user to flag the issue as a candidate for deletion, with automation set up to notify the people authorized to delete issues.

Instead of deleting issues consider archiving the issues to hide them from filters and reports. Refer to this change request.

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-5843>

Consider a third party product like the one mentioned in the answer from Bloompeak Support. There may be similar products available from the Atlassian Marketplace.


author: Mehmet A _Bloompeak_
body: Merhaba [@ADEM KARATEPE](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5281769)

By default, Jira does not track deleted issues and deleted issues are lost forever. To prevent it happening again, you can try [Restore Deleted Issues](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/1222833) app developed by our team. In order for this app to work, the app must have been installed before the issue is deleted.

After you install this app,  
* Both bulk and single issue deletions are logged.
* You can see when and by whom issues are deleted.
* You can recover summary, description, comments except attachments.

Below you can find an article about tracking and restoring deleted issues in Jira.

[How to Track and Restore Your Deleted Issues in Jira](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/How-to-Track-and-Restore-Your-Deleted-Issues-in-Jira/ba-p/1903911)

Hope it helps.