How to delete a specific Status type in JIRA

Question

I created a new Status type in JIRA status. Let's call the new status "MERGED." This is in addition to the standard status that Jira provides, like "To Do", "In Progress", "Done" etc.

However, we've decided not to use it. All items that were tagged as "Merged" have since been moved to "Done".

How do I delete the "Merged" status option in Jira so that nobody accidentally tags any items and it does not appear in any JQL queries?

Answer 1

This is explained in Defining Status Field Values, see Deleting a Status:

The View Statuses page can be used to edit and delete Statuses. Please note that only statuses (i.e. statuses that are not used in any workflow) can be deleted.

• A Delete link for deleting a Status will only appear next to the Edit link of an Inactive status

As outlined, you need to ensure that no workflow is using the status you want to delete, which can see Statuses in the workflow designer for how to achieve this:

Remove a status – via Properties panel. Removes the status from the workflow, but not the JIRA instance.

Once you removed the status in question from all workflows, you can then remove it from the JIRA instance as well as outlined in the first quote above.