# Article Name
3 Ways to Remove a User from a Group in Jira

# Article Summary
Discover three ways to remove a user from a group in Jira with clear options for managing group membership updates as needed

# Original HTML URL on Toriihq.com
https://www.toriihq.com/articles/how-to-remove-user-from-group-jira

# Details
Removing someone from a Jira group comes up a lot, role changes, departures, access cleanup. Done right, it protects permissions, projects, and your audit trail.

This guide shows three reliable ways to update group membership: starting from the group, from the user, and from Atlassian Admin/SCIM. You’ll know which path fits your setup, what changes each method applies, and how to avoid surprises with licenses and permission schemes.

## Use Jira's UI

Here, you’ll use the Jira UI to remove a user from a group. This is the standard path Atlassian documents for managing group membership.

### Know what you need before you start

- Permissions:
- Jira Cloud: site admin or user management admin. Atlassian’s docs note these roles can manage users and groups.
- Jira Data Center: Jira administrators or system administrators.
- Impact:
- Groups often grant product access and permissions. If you remove someone from a group like jira-software-users, they may lose their license and access.
- Some projects use groups in project roles. Access to those projects can change right away.

### Go to User management

- Jira Cloud:
- In Jira, select the gear icon in the top right.
- Choose User management. This opens Atlassian administration for your site.
- Jira Data Center:
- Select the gear icon.
- Choose User management from the admin menu.

### Open the group

- Go to Groups.
- Search for the group name.
- Click the group to open its members list.

### Remove the user from the group

- In the group’s Members list, find the user:
- Use the search box if the list is long.
- In the row for that user, select Remove or the more actions menu, then Remove from group.
- Confirm the removal.

### Optional: Remove from the user’s profile instead

- Go to Users in User management.
- Open the user’s profile.
- Find the Groups section.
- Select Remove next to the group you want to take them out of, then confirm.

### Double-check access after removal

- Open the same user profile and review:
- Product access. Make sure they still have what they need.
- Group memberships. Confirm the group is gone.
- If the user lost needed access, add them to a different group that grants the right permissions.

### If the UI blocks you

- If the group shows as managed externally or locked, Jira may be syncing it from a directory. Atlassian’s docs note that these groups can’t be edited in Jira.
- In that case, contact the team that manages your directory, or pick a different Jira-managed group for access control.

## Use Torii

Instead of working inside Jira itself, consider using Torii [https://www.toriihq.com/], a SaaS Management Platform, to remove a user from a Jira group. SMPs centralize your SaaS apps and integrations, letting you programmatically onboard/offboard users, view subscription and license info, and handle other repetitive tasks from one place.

With Torii, you can automate this end-to-end so the action runs as soon as a chosen trigger occurs-such as a new hire, an employee departure, a contract change, and more. If you perform this often, automation can save significant time and reduce errors.

To remove a user from a Jira group directly in Torii, follow these steps:

### 1. Sign up for Torii

Contact Torii [https://www.toriihq.com/], and ask for your free two-week proof-of-concept.

### 2. Connect your Jira account to Torii

Once your account is active, connect Jira to Torii (assuming you already have a Jira account). Here are the instructions for the Jira integration [https://support.toriihq.com/hc/en-us/articles/5190745800731].

### 3. Create a Torii workflow for Jira

Inside Torii, set up an automated workflow to remove a user from a Jira group. Go to the Workflows tab, define a trigger, and add an action to remove the user from the desired Jira group. From then on, whenever the trigger conditions are met, Jira will be updated automatically.

## Use Jira's API

Here, you’ll use the Jira Cloud REST API to remove a user from a group. We’ll call the Remove user from group endpoint in Jira’s REST API and verify the change.

### 1) Set your base info and auth

You’ll make HTTPS requests to your Jira Cloud site with Basic auth using your email and API token.

Example environment setup:

### 2) Get the user’s accountId

Jira Cloud uses accountId, not username, for user management. Use the user search endpoint to look up the accountId by name or email.

Example curl is:

- From the JSON array, copy the accountId of the user you want to remove.

Tip: If you prefer a partial name search, replace the email with part of the display name.

### 3) Get the group identifier

The remove endpoint accepts either groupId or groupname. Using groupId is safer because names can change.

Option A: Find a group by name and read its groupId.

Example curl is:

- In the response, grab the groupId field.

Option B: Search for groups with a keyword.

Example curl is:

- Pick the right group from groups and copy its groupId.

### 4) Remove the user from the group

Call the Remove user from group endpoint. On success, Jira returns HTTP 204 No Content.

Example using groupId is:

If you only have the name, you can pass groupname instead of groupId:

### 5) Verify the user is no longer a member

List group members and confirm the accountId is gone. This endpoint is paged.

Example curl is:

- If there are more than maxResults members, follow nextPage to continue until you’ve checked all results.

### 6) Common issues to check

- Permission errors:
- Your account needs permission to manage groups in Jira.
- 400 Bad Request:
- Check that you used accountId, not email or username.
- Make sure you passed either groupId or groupname, not both missing or malformed.
- 401/403:
- Verify your API token and that the account has the right permissions.
- 404:
- The group or user wasn’t found. Confirm the exact groupId/groupname and accountId.

Notes on the endpoints referenced:

- Remove user from group: DELETE /rest/api/3/group/user
- Get group by name: GET /rest/api/3/group
- Groups picker: GET /rest/api/3/groups/picker
- Search users: GET /rest/api/3/user/search
- List group members: GET /rest/api/3/group/member