Docs: Project Export for Jira

Last updated 10 November 2026

Project Export adds an Export project page to each Jira Cloud project. One click makes a zip with every work item, its history, comments, worklogs, watchers and attachments, the project's setup, and Markdown for AI tools. It runs on Atlassian: nothing is sent outside Atlassian, and no API token is needed.

Install

A Jira admin installs Project Export from the Atlassian Marketplace (Apps > Explore more apps) and starts the free trial or subscribes.
Open any project and choose Export project in the project's navigation (under More if the bar is full).

Who can export

People with the Administer Projects permission for the project, or Jira admins. Others can open the page but can't start or download exports. The export runs as the person who clicked, so it contains what that person can see. Workflows, the workflow scheme and custom field options need the Administer Jira permission; a project admin's export leaves them out and says so in export-summary.json.

Run an export

Click Export project. The page shows progress; you can leave it, and the export keeps running. One export per project runs at a time.
When it's complete, click Download. Big projects come in parts (zip files of up to ~300 MB each): download every part and unzip them into one folder.
Files are kept for 7 days, then deleted. Delete removes them sooner. Stop export stops a running export and keeps what's done so far, marked Stopped.

Measured on our test site (10 November 2026): 57 work items with 43 attachments in 39 seconds; 2,000 work items with 166 MB of attachments in about 7 minutes, with every item, comment, history entry, worklog and attachment size checked against Jira.

What's in the file

Path	Contents
`README.md`, `export-summary.json`	What's in this export, totals, and anything that couldn't be exported
`project.json`, `components.json`, `versions.json`, `statuses.json`	The project and its setup
`fields.json`, `config/customfields.json`	Every field, and custom field definitions with their options
`config/workflows.json`, `config/workflowscheme.json`, `config/linktypes.json`	Workflows (statuses, transitions, rules), which work item type uses which, link types
`boards.json`	Boards with their configuration and sprints
`issues/<KEY>.json`	Each work item as Jira returns it, with its full history, comments, worklogs and watchers
`attachments/<KEY>/`	Attachment files as uploaded, with a size check in `manifest/`
`ai/items/<KEY>.md`, `ai/items-part-NNN.jsonl`	The same work items as one Markdown file each (fields, description, comments, status history, attachment list) and as compact JSON lines, for loading into AI tools or a search index

Restore

The restore script rebuilds a project from the export as a new company-managed project, on the same site or on another Jira Cloud site. You run it on your computer (Python 3) with your own API token and Jira admin rights on the target; it's not part of the app. Run it with --dry-run first to see what it will create.

A restore keeps: work item keys, summaries, descriptions, types, statuses, resolutions, priorities, labels, assignees, due dates, components, versions, custom fields and their options, parents and epics, links, sprints, rank order, comments, worklogs, attachments and watchers.

Jira doesn't let anyone write these back, so a restore loses them as Jira data:

Created and resolved dates, and comment and attachment dates, become the restore date. The originals are in the JSON, and each restored comment and worklog starts with an "Originally by … on …" line.
History can't be written into Jira: each restored work item gets a history-<KEY>.csv attachment instead.
Comment, worklog and attachment authors become the person restoring. The reporter is kept only if the person restoring has the Modify Reporter permission in the new project (Jira Free has no way to grant it); otherwise it becomes the person restoring too.
Custom board columns and quick filters come back as the defaults.
Users who aren't on the target site are left empty.

Tested on company-managed projects. Team-managed projects export, but their restore hasn't been tested yet.

Pricing and trial

Billed by Atlassian, by your site's Jira user count: $10 a month flat for up to 10 users, then per-user prices that fall with size, from $1.20 (11–100 users) to $0.30 (over 1,000). Annual is 10× monthly. The Marketplace listing shows your exact price. The trial exports the full setup and the first 100 work items.

Data and security

The app runs only on Atlassian's Forge platform and has no permission to send data outside Atlassian. Exports are stored in the app's Forge storage in your site's data residency location and deleted after 7 days. Details in the privacy policy.

Limits

One project per export; one running export per project.
Very large projects take a while: roughly 25 minutes per 10,000 work items (estimated from the 2,000-item test).
Team-managed projects export but their restore is untested.

Questions: support.