Purpose

To make attachments not available to download. Follow the instructions below to disable attachment downloads.

Solution

At the moment, permissions for downloading attachments can't be set. To disable attachment downloading you need to edit your velocity files. Attachments can currently be downloaded in two separate ways:

• Viewing the attachments for a page
• Viewing all the attachments for a Space (Browse > Attachments)

These customizations will disable attachment downloads for all users, including administrators.

Disable attachments for a whole Space

To disable downloading attachments from a Space, you need to edit the listattachmentsforspace.vm file.  This file can be found at the below location.

• <Confluence-installation-directory>/confluence/pages

Delete or comment out the following line:

<td><a name="$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.content.displayTitle)-attachment-$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.fileName)">#parse ("/pages/includes/attachment_icon.vm")</a> <a href="$req.contextPath$!attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion">$generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 50)</a></td>

and replace it with either of the following two code blocks:

Disabling downloading for all attachments

<td><a name="$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.content.displayTitle)-attachment-$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.fileName)">#parse ("/pages/includes/attachment_icon.vm")</a> $generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 50)</td>

Disabling downloading for specific file types

#set($disabledDownloads = ['ext1', 'ext2'])
#set($disabled = false)
#set($attachmentExtension = $attachment.fileExtension)
<tr id="attachment_$!attachment.id">
    #foreach($doNotDownload in $disabledDownloads)
        #if($attachmentExtension == $doNotDownload)
            #set($disabled = true)
            #break
        #end
    #end
    #if(!$disabled)
        <td><a name="$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.content.displayTitle)-attachment-$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.fileName)">#parse ("/pages/includes/attachment_icon.vm")</a> <a href="$req.contextPath$!attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion">$generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 50)</a></td>
    #else
        <td><a name="$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.content.displayTitle)-attachment-$!generalUtil.urlEncode($!attachment.fileName)">#parse ("/pages/includes/attachment_icon.vm")</a> $generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 50)</td>
    #end

To specify which files you want disabled, change the

 'ext1', 'ext2' 

in the first line to the extensions for which you want to disable downloading. You can specify as many extensions as you want, as long as they are in quotes, are comma separated and do not include the '.' at the start. For example, if I did not want users to download .jpg, .doc and .png files, the line would read

#set($disabledDownloads = ['jpg', 'doc', 'png'])

Disable attachments for a specific page

To disable downloading attachments from a specific page, you need to edit the attachments-table.vm file. This file can be found at the below location.

• <Confluence-installation-directory>/confluence/pages/includes

Delete or comment out the line

<a class="filename" href="$generalUtil.htmlEncode("${req.contextPath}${attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion}")" title="$generalUtil.htmlEncodeAndReplaceSpaces($attachment.fileName)" >$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 35))</a>

and replace it with either of the following two code blocks:

Disabling downloading for all attachments

$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 35))

Disabling downloading for specific file types

#set($disabledDownloads = ['ext1', 'ext2'])
#set($disabled = false)
#set($attachmentExtension = $attachment.fileExtension)
#foreach($doNotDownload in $disabledDownloads)
    #if($attachmentExtension == $doNotDownload)
        #set($disabled = true)
        #break
    #end
#end
#if(!$disabled) <a class="filename" href="$generalUtil.htmlEncode("${req.contextPath}${attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion}")" title="$generalUtil.htmlEncodeAndReplaceSpaces($attachment.fileName)" >$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 35))</a>
#else $generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.shortenString($attachment.fileName, 35))
#end

Again, to specify which files you want disabled, change the

 'ext1', 'ext2' 

in the first line to the extensions for which you want to disable downloading. You can specify as many extensions as you want, as long as they are in quotes, are comma separated and do not include the '.' at the start. For example, if I did not want users to download .jpg, .doc and .png files, the line would read

#set($disabledDownloads = ['jpg', 'doc', 'png'])

Removing the 'Download All' button

1. Click, then General Configuration
2. Click Stylesheet, then the Edit button

3. Add the following to the Global Stylesheet

   a.download-all-link {
       display: none !important;
   }
   a#download-all-link {
       display: none !important;
   }

4. Save

Removing the 'Download All' button  along with the 'download' Icon while previewing the attachment

You can also remove download options by suppressing HTML elements using the Custom HTML section within Confluence. While the above steps can remove the 'Download All' option, users can still manage to download the attachment by previewing it and using the 'Download Icon'. You can use the following steps to suppress both the download all and the download icon.

1. Go to Confluence 'gear' icon and click on 'General Configuration'
2. Go to 'Custom HTML'
3. Edit and insert the following code into the 'At end of the HEAD' section.
4. Save.
   
   

<style type="text/css">
     .cp-control-panel-download {
 		display:none !important;
 	}
 
     .cp-waiting-message-download {
 		display:none !important;
 	}

     a.download-all-link {
 		display: none !important;
     }

     a#download-all-link {
 		display: none !important;
     }
 </style>