Confluence 8.4 beta release notes
Development releases are not production ready. Development releases are snapshots of the ongoing Confluence development process. While we try to keep these releases stable, they have not undergone the same degree of testing as a full release, and could contain features that are incomplete or may change or be removed before the next full release.
No upgrade path. Because development releases represent work in progress, we cannot provide a supported upgrade path between development releases, or from any development release to a final release. You may not be able to migrate any data you store in a Confluence development release to a future Confluence release.
Atlassian does not provide support for development releases.
Issues with this development release?
Please raise an issue to tell us about it.
Highlights of 8.4.0-rc2
Contains:
- Minor bug fixes
Highlights of 8.4.0-rc1
Contains:
- Bug fixes
Highlights of 8.4.0-beta1
Released
Align table content vertically
For: DATA CENTER SERVER
Bring visual harmony to your tables with the ability to align any type of content to the top, middle, or bottom of a table cell. Select the table content you want to align, then choose the desired alignment from the table toolbar. Those cumbersome workarounds are a thing of the past!
Screenshot: Vertical cell alignment options in the table toolbar, and a table displaying top, bottom, and middle alignment
Add your own emojis
For: DATA CENTER SERVER
It's finally here! Add your own emojis and create more engaging and consistent content for your teams. You can upload logos as emojis for internal newsletters, or add system icons to your documentation using emojis. Whatever your content needs, there's an emoji to suit.
Simply select 'Add your own emoji' using the emoji menu in the editor, upload your favourite JPG, PNG, or GIF, give it a name and shortcut, and you're ready to insert it in your pages, blogs, and comments.
See Symbols, special characters, and emojis for the latest details
Screenshot: Add your own emoji from the emoji menu in the editor
Administer custom emojis
For: DATA CENTER SERVER
System admins will be able to view and control custom emojis in the Confluence admin console.
Go to Administration 
> General Configuration > Emojis to view and delete emojis that users have uploaded to the site. Here you can also choose whether users or only system admins can upload emojis.
Learn more about managing emojis
Screenshot: The new Emojis menu in the admin console
Save time with space reindexing
For: DATA CENTER SERVER
Avoid the hassle and hours it might take to rebuild your entire site index when a search-related issue is reported. Now you can reindex one or more spaces in the admin console, which means less disruption for your teams and a smarter approach when troubleshooting search-related issues.
Screenshot: Content indexing menu
Screenshot: Many spaces selected for content reindexing
New REST APIs for user management
For: DATA CENTER SERVER
Effortlessly manage Confluence users and groups by automating and scripting the following tasks through APIs:
change a user's password
- change your own password
add a new user with a given password
retrieve all users (including inactive)
These APIs will make it easier to streamline staff onboarding or off-boarding and perform security group synchronization activities.
See a complete list of user management at our REST API documentation
More improvements to copy space
With multiple improvements and bug fixes, we've enhanced the operation of copy space to duplicate more settings from an original space to a new space.
You'll now have the following copied by default:
- Space header, sidebar, footer, and PDF stylesheets from the look and feel configurations
- Comments pinned to attachments in pages and blog posts
Optionally, you can copy watchers of pages, blog posts, and the original space itself.
Confluence 8.4 will also contain usability improvements and bug fixes to copy space, including translation fixes and a progress page that persists even if you navigate away from it.
Upgrade notes
Backup and restore behavior during rolling upgrade
During a rolling upgrade from Confluence 8.3.2 or newer, any new backup or restore task will be placed in a queue and won't start until the upgrade has finished. If the back up or restore task started before the rolling upgrade, it'll continue to run normally.
Learn more about rolling upgrades
New scheduled job for backup and restore
To help declutter your Confluence instance, we've added a scheduled job that deletes backup or restore tasks created more than 2 weeks from the database; this includes files and metadata. The scheduled clean up won't delete any files that are saved permanently in the database.
To avoid accidental deletion, configure the frequency of this job, or remember to select Save permanently to the database when you back up a space or site.
Learn more about backup and restore
Supported platforms changes
No supported platform changes at this time.
Infrastructure changes
Confluence 8.4 contains changes that may affect apps. Head to Preparing for Confluence 8.4 to find out how these changes will impact app developers.