Why do people housekeep attachments on Jira?

People perform housekeeping of attachments in Jira for several practical and strategic reasons:

🧹 1. Reduce Storage Costs

• Cloud: On Jira Cloud, Atlassian charges based on storage tiers. Attachments (especially images, videos, or large files) quickly add up.

• Data Center / Server: Attachments take up space on shared storage (e.g., EFS, NFS), which may be expensive or limited.

🐢 2. Improve Performance

• Large volumes of attachments can slow down:

  • Page load times (issues with many or large files)

  • Indexing or backup processes

  • Migration/export operations

🔐 3. Mitigate Security & Compliance Risks

• Old or untracked attachments may contain:

  • Sensitive data (e.g., passwords, PII, customer info)

  • Proprietary or outdated documents no longer needed

• Data retention policies or audits may require timely cleanup.

• Compliance with GDPR

🔍 4. Reduce Clutter & Improve Usability

• Users may find it hard to locate the relevant files if there are many outdated versions or duplicates.

• Files like email signatures and company logos are adding to the clutter

• Clean issue views make it easier for teams to focus.

📦 5. Prepare for Migrations or Archiving

• Before moving projects to another instance, or archiving them, teams often:

  • Remove unnecessary attachments

  • Consolidate or offload files to external storage (like Confluence or cloud drives)

🚧 Common Cleanup Strategies

• Delete attachments from closed/resolved issues older than X months

• Identify unused or duplicate attachments

• Replace large attachments with links to external sources (Google Drive, SharePoint)

• Use automation or scripting to flag or archive old files