What Linear's Jira importer imports — and leaves behind
Linear's free Jira importer skips custom fields, fix versions, sprints, pull request links and watchers, and links most files back to Jira. Here's what moves.
Linear ships a free Jira importer, and for many small teams it's all they need. For anyone with years of history, it's worth knowing exactly what comes across before you rely on it — especially if you plan to switch Jira off afterwards.
Everything below is based on Linear's Jira import documentation as of October 2026. Linear updates its importers, so check the docs for changes.
What the built-in importer brings over
| Jira | In Linear |
|---|---|
| Summary and description | Title and description, converted to Markdown |
| Status | Workflow state, on a best-effort basis |
| Priority | Priority |
| Assignee and creator | Assignee and creator, matched to Linear users |
| Comments | Comments |
| Epic | Project |
| Parent and sub-task | Parent issue and sub-issue |
| Issue type, components | Labels |
| Labels | Labels |
| Estimate, due date, created | Estimate, due date, created date |
| Images | Uploaded image files |
| Issue key | A backlink, or the same identifier in some cases |
Imported issues also get a Migrated label, which makes them easy to find later.
What it leaves behind
Custom fields
Linear's documentation is explicit: data not in the mapping table, such as custom fields, is not imported. If your team relies on fields like Customer, Severity, Team or Environment, decide before importing whether each becomes a label, part of the description, or is dropped.
Fix versions and sprints
Neither fix versions nor sprints appear in the mapping. After the import you know what was done, but not which release it shipped in or which sprint it belonged to. That's the history you reach for in retrospectives, release notes and audits. See moving Jira sprints and fix versions to Linear for ways to keep it.
Pull request links
The development panel in Jira — linked branches, commits and pull requests from GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket — isn't part of the import. Issues arrive without the code that resolved them.
Watchers
Jira watchers don't become Linear subscribers, so the people who were following an issue stop hearing about it after the move.
Most attachments
Images are uploaded to Linear. Other files — PDFs, logs, videos, design files — are imported as links pointing back to the original file in Jira, and opening them requires Jira credentials. When you cancel Jira, those links break.
Issue keys, unless the team is empty
Linear can match identifiers so that ENG-1423 stays ENG-1423, but only when importing into a new or empty team. Otherwise you get a backlink to the Jira issue instead. If your commit messages, docs and support tickets reference Jira keys, read keeping your Jira issue keys in Linear.
Anything that changes after the import
The import runs once. Re-running it into the same team skips issues that were already imported, so later edits and new comments in Jira don't come across. Linear's separate Jira Sync integration can keep new issues in sync, but it doesn't re-import history.
When the built-in importer is enough
It's a good fit when:
- You're a small team and only need recent, active work.
- You don't use custom fields, versions or sprints in a way you'll miss.
- Attachments are mostly screenshots.
- You'll keep Jira available as a read-only archive for as long as you might need the rest.
When you need more
Consider another approach if any of these are true:
- You plan to cancel Jira, so links back to it will break.
- Release history or sprint history matters for audits, release notes or retrospectives.
- Issue keys appear in code, docs or customer conversations.
- Your team will keep working in Jira while you migrate, and you need later changes to come across.
- Files beyond screenshots — specs, logs, recordings — are part of your issues.
You can fill some gaps by hand: export attachments separately, add versions and sprints as labels before importing, or write scripts against both APIs. Or use a tool built for complete migrations: Jira-to-Linear-importer imports fix versions as releases, sprints as projects, pull request links, every comment, uploaded attachments and subscribers, keeps your issue prefix, and syncs incrementally until you switch.