How to Create Filters in Jira [2025 Guide]

Want to learn how to create filters in Jira? We’ve got you covered.

As a Jira user, chances are that you’ve found yourself running the same specific searches over and over again. Let’s say, checking for bugs assigned to you or high-priority unassigned issues.

While Jira search is powerful in finding these work items, applying the same default filters or rebuilding the same JQL queries each time you need to is inefficient. It limits how productive you can be in Jira.

Fortunately, you can save highly specific searches as filters and reuse them to find issues in just one click. In this guide, we’ll cover what filters are and how to create your own filters to improve your productivity in Jira.

What are filters in Jira?

In Jira, filters are saved, reusable search queries that allow you to find a specific set of issues. They save you the time and effort you would otherwise need to find these issues by allowing you to do it in a single click.

There are two types of these filters:

• Default filters.
• Custom filters.

As the name suggests, default filters come built into Jira. They’re pre-defined by Jira to help you quickly perform broad, common searches. They include:

• My open work items – All issues assigned to you that are not yet marked done.
• Reported by me – All issues you created, regardless of who they’re assigned to.

Updated recently – For example, issues where a comment was added or a status update was issued.

• And many more.

You’ll find these default filters in the main menu on the left sidebar. There are other default filters that you’ll find under basic search. For example, filtering by project, assignee, issue type, status, etc. These filters enable you to narrow down Basic Search to find what you’re looking for easily.

Because these filters are built-in, you can’t edit or delete them.

Why are custom filters in Jira, and why are they necessary?

Atlassian refers to custom filters as saved searches. This is because you or your team create and save them for your own specific needs. Unlike default filters, you can edit or delete them. So why are they necessary? Let’s look at examples.

Every member or team in Jira performs complex, highly specific searches. For example:

• A software team might need to find ‘all high-priority bugs reported in the last 7 days that are still unassigned’.
• A marketing team, on the other hand, might need to search for ‘all content creation tasks for Q2 that are in the ‘Drafting’ status’.

In these cases, default filters such as ‘My open work items’ won’t really find what you need. You’ll need to construct a specific search using several filters in Basic Search or write a search query using JQL.

But constructing these searches every time you need to find high-priority unassigned bugs or content creation tasks is extremely inefficient. With custom filters, you can create complex, highly-specific searches once, save them, and then reuse them whenever you want.

You can use them to pull up specific issues in a single click, like you would with default filters.

What can you do with Jira filters?

Apart from performing complex, highly specific searches in one click, here’s what you can do to your filters after creating them.

• Share filters

You can configure who can view or perform specific functions on a filter you’ve created by editing its permissions. You’ll be able to choose the project(s) and the roles of people who can do this.

• Subscribe to filters

Teams or members can subscribe to a filter and be notified each time a work item returned by the filter changes. So if your filter returns unassigned bugs, if someone is assigned one of the bugs, you’ll be notified.

• Adding filters to dashboards and boards

You can use gadgets to add specific filters to your dashboards. This displays a summary of all issues returned by a specific filter. For instance, ‘Unassigned bugs – 10’.

Essentially, filters in Jira improve your productivity. You don’t have to re-create complex searches for things that you search for regularly.

Now that you know what filters in Jira are, let’s look into creating one.

How to create filters in Jira

Filters in Jira are based on the search functionality. You search for work items using different criteria in basic or advanced search, then save your search criteria as a filter. You can then re-use this filter to perform similar searches in the future.

Jira offers two search modes from which you can create filters:

• Basic Search.
• Advanced Search with JQL.

Let’s first differentiate the two to understand the different ways we can create filters in Jira.

The difference between Jira Basic Search and Advanced Search modes

Basic Search is the default user-friendly seach mode. It provides you with a simple search interface where you can type in an issue name, id, or any other information. Then, filter the results by things like project, assignee, status, and numerous other criteria.

NOTE: A cool feature here is that Jira updates search results in real-time as you select your criteria.

Basic Search is best for everyday users running simple search queries, and those who are unfamiliar with JQL or not well-versed with it. However, it’s limited, and you can’t perform complex searches with it. For instance, you can’t use complex operators such as ‘OR’, ‘NOT’, ‘greater than/less than’, etc. It limits you to ‘AND’, as in combining different criteria.

Advanced Search is where Jira’s seach functionality is fully realized. This is a powerful search mode based on the JQL language (Jira’s SQL-like querying language). Here, you write JQL code directly into the input field, leaving Jira to handle the rest.

You’ll be able to perform highly specific, complex searches using the advanced operators mentioned above.

So that’s what Jira’s search modes are. We can now see how we use them to create filters.

Step 1: Navigate to the issue search screen

First, click on Filters in the main menu on your Jira dashboard, then select Search work items.

This will take you to the project search screen, where you can build your search query.

Step 2: Choose your search mode

On the top toolbar, you’ll see Basic and JQL search modes next to each other. Select the search mode you want to use.

Step 3: Build your search query

If you selected Basic Search, you’ll be provided with several dropdowns you can use to select the search criteria. These include project, status, assignee, type of issue, etc. Let’s say you want to create a filter for a project manager who wants to find all open bugs assigned to a specific developer and have a high priority.

Here are the criteria you’ll select:

• Project – select one or more projects.
• Status – ‘To do’, ‘In Progress’, or ‘Reopened’.
• Issue Type – Bug.
• Assignee – <<Developer Name>>.

Priority – Highest or High.

If you selected Advanced Search with JQL, you’ll need to write a JQL query for your filter. Let’s say you want to find all unresolved bugs created in the past 30 days assigned to the current user, OR are a high priority and were commented on by a specific user. Here’s what this query will look like:

(statusCategory != Done AND created >= “-30d”) AND (assignee = currentUser() OR (priority = Medium AND comment ~ “<<Developer Name>>”))

Several JQL functions are particularly useful for creating filters, for example:

• issueFunction in linkedIssuesOf() – Finds issues linked to the results of another query, such as stories being blocked by open bugs.
• parentsOf() – Although not a native Jira function, it helps to find stories, epics, or initiatives that contain a specific set of subtasks or stories.
• updated >= -1 – Finds issues updated in the last 24 hours.

There are many more functions you can use; be sure to check them out on the JQL documentation.

Step 4: Validate results and save your search query as a filter

After building your query, check to see if the results it returns are the ones you expect. If they aren’t, you can always tweak the criteria. Once everything is okay, click on Save Filter.

Add a name and description for your filter and click Save to finish.

That’s it, you’ve created a filter for yourself. To view it and other created filters, click on View all filters on the main menu.

What are the different types of filters you can create in Jira?

The most common type of filters you’ll create are team filters for single projects. For example, checking overdue tasks or bugs. But you can take things up an notch to create:

• Cross-project filters – With Basic Search, you’re allowed to select multiple projects in the Jira instance that you want the filter to apply to. This feature is useful when you want to create filters that cut across multiple projects.

• Management filters – You can also create less specific filters for management, for instance, issues overdue, high-priority blockers, etc.

You’ll find most of what you need to create the filters you want in Jira’s default search features. But, if that isn’t enough, you can always complement (let’s say, adding non-native function types to JQL) what Jira offers by default using apps from the Atlassian Marketplace.

How to manage filters in Jira

After creating filters, there are several things you can do to manage them. First, to ensure your filters remain useful, you’ll need to update them regularly. Here’s what you can do to update filters.

How to update filters in Jira

Start by accessing the filters screen by clicking on Filters > View all filters on the Jira dashboard main menu. Then follow these steps:

1. Search for your filter of interest by typing it in the search bar at the top. You can also filter the search results by project, owner, or group.

2. To update the name and description, click on the dots at the end and fill in this information in the window that pops up.

3. To update the search criteria, click on the filter’s name. On the next screen, you’ll be able to change the search criteria (update basic search criteria or JQL query) and then click on Save to finish.

Sharing filters

You can share a filter you’ve created with your team and decide who can see it and if they can edit it. To configure these permissions:

1. Navigate to the Filters screen (as described above) and search for the filter you want to add permissions to. 
2. By default, filter permissions (viewing and editing) will be set to private. Meaning only you can view and edit them. To change this, click on the three dots (…) on the far right and select Edit.
3. In the first field, you can add people who can view the filter. Click on the dropdown to select who can do this; it can be per project, group, the entire organization, etc.

4. If you select ‘Project’, you can specify the project and user roles in the dropdowns that follow. Click on Add to add each option.

5. To give edit permissions, follow the same steps for the section below this.

6. Click Save to finish.

Once done, the people you specified will be able to view/edit the filter. You can also choose to keep edit permissions private so that only you can edit the filter.

Subscribing to filters

To subscribe to filters and get notifications on any changes to them, navigate to the Filters screen as we did before. Then:

1. Click on the three dots (…) > Manage subscriptions.
2. Next, click on the Add subscription button.
3. Choose the recipients, schedule, interval, and finally check the box if you want to receive an email even if no issues are found.

4. Once done, click on subscribe.

Summary

Jira allows you to save highly specific searches you conduct regularly as filters so that you don’t have to construct them each time you need to. You can get the search results you desire by simply clicking on the filter.

This is a great way to improve your team’s productivity in Jira and bring structure to how you complete regular searches. After creating filters, you can manage them by updating them, sharing them with your team, and subscribing to get notifications about them.