Summary

Using the REST API might be helpful to automate some operations on Confluence.

A Confluence user or the administrator may need to delete a set of page attachments, but going through the User Interface (UI) could be rather impractical depending on the number of target attachment files.

This document provides a step-by-step procedure on how to use the Confluence REST API to delete an attachment, provided you have the attachment ID.

The suggested solution is provided as a set of bash commands using curl to run the REST API call. You may use this as an example to create an automation tool in your preferred coding language.

Solution

1. Set up environment variables as suggested below.

   • Code
   • Example

   USER_NAME=<username> ### You must be either a Space Administrator or a Confluence Administrator since we will purge the trash
   USER_PASSWORD=<user password>
   CONFLUENCE_BASEURL=<Confluence Base URL> ### FQDN and context path without the trailing slash
   ATTACHMENT_ID=<attachment ID>

   

   
   
   

2. Send the attachment to the Space Trash.
   The DELETE operation will change the attachment status from CURRENT to TRASHED.
   The expected HTTP status for this request is 204.
   This operation can be reverted from the UI by accessing the Space Trash.

   • Code
   • Example

   curl  -u ${USER_NAME}:${USER_PASSWORD} -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Accept: application/json' -X DELETE ${CONFLUENCE_BASEURL}'/rest/api/content/'${ATTACHMENT_ID}'?status=current'

   

   
   
   

3. Purge the attachment from the trash.
   This is the operation that will delete the attachment metadata from the Confluence database and the actual file(s) from the file system.
   The expected HTTP status for this request is 204.
   This operation cannot be reverted.

   • Code
   • Example

   curl -v -u ${USER_NAME}:${USER_PASSWORD} -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Accept: application/json' -X DELETE ${CONFLUENCE_BASEURL}'/rest/api/content/'${ATTACHMENT_ID}'?status=trashed' >/dev/null

   

With the steps above we provided an example of how to completely delete all versions of an attachment.

With this, you may be able to create a script in your preferred coding language to delete a set of attachments.

See Also

Confluence Server REST API

Confluence REST API Documentation