Link Expiration
Every public link — Work Item, board or filter — can be given an expiry date. Once it passes, the link stops working everywhere, immediately.
Administrators can go further and set a default expiry for all new links, and a maximum lifetime that nobody can exceed.
Why Set an Expiry
A public link has no password by default and never asks who is opening it. Left alone, it keeps working for as long as the app is installed — long after the client review, the vendor engagement or the incident it was created for has finished.
An expiry turns "someone should remember to revoke this" into something that happens on its own. It is the single most effective control in the app, because it is the only one that does not depend on anyone remembering anything.
Setting an Expiry
The control is in the Security section of every sharing dialog, labelled Link expires:
| Option | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Never | The link works until sharing is turned off manually |
| 24 hours | Expires exactly 24 hours from the moment you save |
| 7 days / 30 days / 90 days | Exact multiples of 24 hours from the moment you save |
| Custom date… | Expires at the end of the date you pick |
The picker shows both the exact date and a relative summary ("in 7 days"), so there is no ambiguity about what you have chosen.
Custom date runs to the end of that day. Choosing 31 December means the link still works all day on the 31st and stops at 23:59:59 your local time — not at midnight that morning. Picking today is allowed and gives you a link that dies tonight.
An expiry can be added, changed or removed at any time by reopening the dialog and saving — you do not have to create a new link to change when it dies.
What Happens When a Link Expires
Expiry is checked at the moment someone tries to use the link. There is no delay and no background job to wait for.
| Where | What happens |
|---|---|
| Someone opens the URL | A "Link Expired" page, telling them the link is no longer available |
| A tab that was already open | The next action fails and the page swaps to a "this link has expired" notice |
| The sharing dialog, back in Jira | A warning panel offering to extend the same link or replace it |
| Admin overview tables | An Expired label in the Expires column |
The Copy, Open and QR code buttons disappear while a link is expired. Handing someone a URL that no longer works is worse than offering no button at all.
Expired links are not deleted. The record stays so you can revive it — see below — and so administrators can still see what was shared and clear it up.
Reviving or Replacing an Expired Link
When you reopen the dialog for an expired link, you have two options, and the difference matters:
Extend it — pick a new expiry and save. The same URL starts working again. Anyone who still has the old link regains access. Choose this when the link is simply still needed.
Replace it with a new URL — the old URL never works again, whoever holds it. Choose this when the link may have been forwarded further than you intended, or when the audience has changed.
How you replace it depends on what is shared:
| Share type | How to replace |
|---|---|
| Work Item, board | The expired-link warning offers a Create a new link button, which does both steps for you |
| Filter | Revoke the expired link from your list, then create a new one |
Administrator Settings
Both settings live under Jira Settings → Apps → Share Public Link → Sharing Policy, in the Link Expiry Policy section.
Default expiry for new links
Pre-selects an expiry whenever anyone creates a new link. The person sharing can still change it, including back to Never.
This is a nudge, not a control. Its value is that the safe option becomes the one people get by not thinking about it.
Maximum lifetime
A hard ceiling. Nobody can create or edit a link to last longer than this, and while it is set "Never" is not available to anyone — that is the entire point of the setting.
If someone requests a longer expiry than the cap allows, the link is saved with the cap instead, silently.
Reviewing Expiries Across the Site
The Shared Work Items, Shared Boards and Shared Filters tabs of the admin page each have an Expires column showing, per link:
- the exact expiry date, or Never
- a highlight when a link expires within the next 24 hours
- an Expired label for links whose date has already passed
This is the fastest way to find links that will outlive their purpose — sort by the column and look at everything reading Never.
FAQ
Does an expired link delete the Work Item, board or filter?
No. Expiry only affects the public link. Nothing in Jira is touched, and nothing shared is deleted.
Can recipients tell how long a link has left?
No. The shared page does not show an expiry date. Recipients only find out when it stops working, so tell them yourself if the deadline matters to them.
What timezone is the expiry in?
Stored as an exact moment in time, so it expires simultaneously everywhere. A custom date is interpreted as the end of that day in the timezone of whoever picked it; the fixed periods are exact multiples of 24 hours from the moment of saving.
If I change the expiry, does the URL change?
No. Changing an expiry keeps the same URL — that is what makes extending an expired link hand access back to everyone who had it. Only replacing the link gives you a different URL.
Can I set an expiry on a link someone else created?
For Work Items and boards, yes — anyone who can open the sharing dialog can edit the active link, since there is one link per Work Item or board. For filters, only the person who created a link can edit it; administrators can revoke any of them.
Do expired links still count towards anything?
No. They serve no content and consume no quota. They remain listed only so they can be revived or cleaned up.
Is there a way to expire every link at once?
No. Setting a maximum lifetime caps everything created or edited from that point on, but existing links have to be revoked individually from the admin tables.