Jira Due Date Reminders: How to Send Email Before and After a Deadline

Which method fits

The built-in due date digest

The simplest Jira due date reminder is already in Jira. Select your avatar, then Personal settings→Digests, and turn on Due or overdue work items with Email, In app or both.

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The page has no time setting. Atlassian’s public request JRACLOUD-91990 describes the current behavior as a daily notification at about 8–9 am local time for the assignee’s due and overdue work. Each person controls their own setting, so a manager cannot turn it on for the team.

The usual Jira email notifications (Emails and notifications in the same settings) are about activity: you are the assignee, the reporter, or you changed a work item. They do not count down to a date. For Jira custom notifications such as “two days before the due date, with this subject”, use automation.

Check: the assignee has Due or overdue work items on for the channel they actually read.

Email two days before the due date

The example uses a sample service space: on 2 October 2026 the work item SECOPS-163 had a due date of 4 October 2026.

1. 1

   Step 1: Create a scheduled flow

   Go to Space settings→Automation→Create flow→Create from scratch and add the Scheduled trigger. Set Run flow every to 1 Days at 9:00 AM.

   Check: the trigger card says “Every day at 9:00 AM” and Next run shows the right zone.

2. 2

   Step 2: Find the work items due in two days

   Tick Run a JQL search and execute actions for each work item in the query, enter the query and select Validate query:

   duedate = startOfDay(2) AND statusCategory != Done

   It means “due two calendar days from today, and not finished”. Then untick Only include work items that have changed since the last time this flow executed. Jira ticks it when you add the query, and with it on, a work item that nobody edited is skipped — a deadline getting closer is not an edit.

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   Check: the validation finds the work items you expect, and the changed-items box is empty.

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   Step 3: Send the email to the assignee

   Select + under the trigger, choose Action and search for Send customized email. In Settings, fill:

   • Email name — “Due in 2 days” (recipients don’t see it).
   • Recipient(s) — type “Assignee” and pick the user field, not “Add email: Assignee”.
   • Subject — Due in 2 days: {{issue.key}} {{issue.summary}}.

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   On the Content tab, set Content format to Plain text (the other options are Rich text and HTML). In the tested Rich text editor, Jira asked for smart values to be wrapped in inline code; plain text avoids that step. A short deadline reminder email is enough:

   {{issue.key}} {{issue.summary}} is due in 2 days.
   Open it: {{issue.url}}

   Check: the canvas card shows “Send email ‘Due in 2 days’”, the Assignee and your subject.

4. 4

   Step 4: Name it, check usage, enable

   Give the flow a clear name, validate the query once more and select Save and enable. Automation runs count toward your site’s usage limit, which depends on your plan: check the Usage tab on the Automation page before you add daily flows.

   Check: the flow is listed as enabled, and after the next run its audit log shows the email action.

Email when work is overdue

Duplicate the flow, change the email name and subject to “Overdue”, and use this query (on the test space it found 2 work items):

duedate < startOfDay() AND statusCategory != Done

Together the two flows are a deadline reminder email before and after the date. Each reminder goes to whoever is the assignee at the moment of the run.

One weekly list for a team lead

Team reminders don’t always need one email per ticket. For a lead who reviews deadlines once a week, save a filter and subscribe to it:

project = SECOPS AND duedate >= startOfDay() AND duedate <= endOfWeek() AND statusCategory != Done ORDER BY duedate ASC

endOfWeek() ends on Saturday by default. If your team’s week ends on Sunday, use endOfWeek("+1d"). Atlassian: JQL functions

Open Filter details→Add subscription and choose Days per Week, for example Monday. Subscriptions run on your profile’s time zone and include the first 200 results. They go to you, or to a group you belong to if you have the Manage Group Filter Subscriptions global permission. It is one list, not a reminder per work item. The monthly client report guide shows the subscription dialog.

Check: the filter lists this week’s open deadlines, and the subscription day and time are right.

What it costs to run

Flows remove the manual sending, not the ownership. Someone keeps the queries, the time zone, the recipients and the usage in order, and reads the audit log when an email doesn’t arrive. If 20 work items are due in two days, the first flow sends 20 emails that morning; overdue ones come back the next day.

Common questions

Follow-up Email Reminders for Jira sets one-time or recurring reminders on individual work items at a chosen date and time, without changing the due date, for you, the current assignee or named colleagues. It is free for teams of up to 10 users.