PCJ:How to manually migrate attachments

Owned by Camilo Galleguillos (Unlicensed)
Nov 21, 2022
2 min read

When migrating a large project which contains lots of issues and attachments then this can be a very resource intensive process which can cause the export to take a long time to complete or to fail with running out of memory and becoming corrupted.

In order to avoid this happening when migrating projects which contain lots of issues and attachments then we would advise manually migrating attachments by following the instructions below.

Exports without attachments will be smaller in size and will be easier to transfer between the source and target server.

Step-by-step Guide

  1. On the export screen ensure that the Attachment Mode drop-down is set to Manual to generate an export without attachments.
  2. Copy the attachments over to the /tmp directory on the target server using a tool such as SCP or WinSCP. Usually, the attachments are stored in the location of <JiraHomeDirectory>/data/attachments but you will need to check what the attachment directory for your server has been configured to.

  3. On the import screen, specify the path to the copied attachments in the Attachments Path box.

    If you do not see the attachment path box on the import screen then you should ensure you click the Switch to server upload  icon as shown below, and place your import file on the server in order to make this box appear.

  4. Run the import and Project Configurator will copy in the attachments as part of the import process.


After copying the attachments over to the /tmp directory on the target server then you should ensure that their permissions are set to be owned by the same operating system user and group that Jira is running under before running the import.