Link Issues in Bulk

Link multiple Jira issues to the current issue in one operation. Available from the ··· (More actions) menu on any Jira issue.

Opening the dialog

  1. Open a Jira issue
  2. Click ··· in the top-right action bar
  3. Select Link Issues in Bulk

All link types configured in your Jira instance are loaded automatically, for example:

  • blocks / is blocked by
  • clones / is cloned by
  • relates to

The direction matters: selecting “blocks” means the current issue will block the issues you list.

Paste Keys mode

Type or paste issue keys directly, separated by commas, spaces, or newlines.

KAN-1, KAN-2, KAN-3
PROJ-100 PROJ-101

As you type, a live preview shows how many valid keys were found. Duplicates and self-links are removed automatically. Invalid tokens (non-keys) are flagged as a warning so you can review them before linking.

For large batches, an estimated completion time is shown before you start.

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Pasting from a spreadsheet Copy a column of issue keys from Excel or Google Sheets and paste directly. One key per line works perfectly.

JQL mode

Switch to JQL mode to link all issues matching a Jira search query. No copy-pasting required.

Example queries:

project = KAN AND status = "In Progress"
assignee = currentUser() AND sprint in openSprints()
issueKey in (KAN-1, KAN-2, KAN-3)

Preview before linking

Click Preview to see exactly which issues will be linked before committing. The preview shows the total count, a sample of keys, and an estimated time for large result sets.

Max results

Use the Max results selector (50 / 100 / 200 / 500 / 1000) to control how many issues the JQL query returns. Default is 200.

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JQL is validated before running If your query has a syntax error, you'll see the exact Jira error message (e.g. "Field 'abc' does not exist"). Fix the query and try again. No partial runs.

Duplicate detection

Before linking starts, Bulk Issue Link Manager for Jira fetches the current issue’s existing links and partitions your key list:

  • Already linked issues are flagged immediately and counted as skipped. No API calls wasted.
  • Only genuinely new links are sent to Jira

This means re-running a link operation on the same set of issues is safe and fast.

Progress and cancellation

Once linking starts, a live counter shows real-time progress:

240 / 977 done · 238 linked, 2 skipped

Click Cancel at any time to stop. Issues already linked before cancel remain linked.

Results

After completion, results are split into two clear sections:

  • Green: successfully linked issues, plus any already-linked ones that were skipped
  • Amber: failures, grouped by reason (e.g. permission denied, link limit reached)

If some issues failed, a Retry failed button pre-fills only those keys so you can try again without re-entering anything.

Rate limiting

Requests are processed in batches with automatic rate-limit handling. HTTP 429 responses are retried silently with exponential backoff. You will not see rate limit errors in results under normal conditions.