How to restore deleted spaces and attachments from backup
Platform Notice: Data Center - This article applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this knowledge base article was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center knowledge base articles for non-Data Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Purpose
When a Space is deleted it permanently removes the Space and all of its contents, including any Calendars and Questions linked to that Space.
With database and file system backup it is possible to restore the space and its contents. The goal is to restore the backup(DB and Filesystem) to a date before the deletion to a test/temporary environment. With access to this cloned Confluence, you can export your deleted space and import it again in Production.
Solution
This article is meant to give a general idea of the steps needed to restore a deleted space from a production backup.
- Replicate Confluence into a non-Production environment by following Create a staging environment for upgrading Confluence ;
- Restore data from backups (Database, Server, and Attachments directory),
- Make sure to restore the Indexes so Confluence doesn't have to perform a Full Reindex during startup;
- We may need to bypass SAML if that's currently configured in Production;
- Start Confluence non-Production up and navigate to one of the affected Spaces;
- Perform a Full Space Export to XML;
- Once done, transfer the Export File from non-Production to Production and place it into <Confluence-Home>/restore directory;
- Perform a Space Restore from the Home Directory to avoid timeouts - make sure that the Build Index option is checked or the Space will not be immediately available after the Import.
Notes
- You can't import into an earlier version of Confluence, for better compatibility use the same versions on both, if the backup is from an older version you should use this older version. For example, if your site backup was generated(prod) from Confluence 7.13, your temporary environment should be 7.13, you can import the export into a newer one like 7.19.
- The original Space Key will be preserved, along with the titles for Pages and Attachments;
- The restored Spaces, Pages, and Attachments will have different Content IDs as the original content was deleted, and it's not possible to preserve the original values during a Space Migration (Export-Import process);
- It is possible that links pointing to the affected Spaces will not be fixed automatically, and may need to be re-created;
- Team Calendar contents aren't included in XML exports.