3 October 2024

We're excited to present Confluence 9.1

Highlights

• Support for languages and special characters in page URLs
• Code Block macro enhancements
• Improved autocomplete behavior
• New keyboard shortcuts in the editor
• Loom support for the Widget Connector macro
• Single click to copy heading links
• Match system as the new default theme and removal of original theme
• Updated filtering for Task Report macro
• More secure login with two-step verification
• Password policy
• Microsoft Entra ID integration
• Share usage data
• Security monitoring and alerts
• OAuth2 for Application Links supporting 3LO
• Dark theme support for custom logos and color schemes
• Retention rules performance and reliability improvements
• New REST APIs
• Secure your Confluence Mobile iOS devices with OAuth 2.0
• Default encryption
• Advance Notice: take a peek!
  • Improved exact search
  • Faster space deletion

 

Get the latest version

This Confluence release supports only Data Center licenses. If you have a Server license, check out your options for upgrading.

   

More

Read the upgrade notes for important info about this release and see the full list of issues resolved.  

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Support for languages and special characters in page URLs

For: END USERS

Confluence 9.1 now supports a new format for page and blog post URLs. Key improvements include:

• Updated URL format with space key, page ID, and page title for better readability

• Extended support for non-Latin and special characters in page titles within URLs

• Automatic redirection for URLs of renamed pages

• Seamless redirection from old-format URLs, such as bookmarks, to the new URLs without breaking links

The new URL format follows this structure:

https://confluence.example.com/spaces/SPACEKEY/pages/pageID/Page+Title

Discover more about different URL formats for a Confluence page

Code Block macro enhancements

For: END USERS

We've introduced several updates for the Code Block macro to enhance your coding experience in Confluence 9.1:

• Support for 80+ languages: The macro now supports syntax highlighting for over 80 programming languages including highly requested ones such as Rust and YAML, making it easier to read and understand code snippets.

• Click to copy: Users can copy the contents of the macro to their clipboard with a single click.

• Inline text wrapping: When the macro has long lines of text, you can use a new useful button for inline text wrapping.

• Improved user experience: Several UX enhancements have been made to make the macro more intuitive and user-friendly.

• Removal of themes: The macro is now dark theme compatible, and the option to set individual themes across code blocks has been removed for a more consistent user experience.

• Default Plain Text: When an admin doesn't set a default language, the system will now default to Plain Text instead of Java.

Discover more about Code Block macro

Improved autocomplete behavior

For: END USERS

We’ve heard your feedback that the autocomplete function for emojis can sometimes be disruptive, especially for languages that frequently use the colon (:) character.

To address this, we've updated the autocomplete dialog behavior. Now, it automatically closes if the next typed character is a space. This change applies to all autocomplete dialogs, including:

• Image/Media: !

• Link: [

• Macro: {, /

• Mentions: @

• Emoji: :

Discover more about autocomplete

New keyboard shortcuts in the editor

For: END USERS

To enhance the editing experience, we’ve introduced new keyboard shortcuts:

• Clear all formatting: CTRL + \

• Subscript: CTRL + Shift + ,

• Superscript: CTRL + Shift + .

• Monospace: CTRL + Shift + M

Note that CTRL + Shift + M doesn’t open the emojis menu. You can insert emojis using the colon (:) as a keyboard shortcut.

Check out more about keyboard shortcuts

Loom support for the Widget Connector macro

For: END USERS

With Confluence 9.1, you can now embed Loom videos by pasting the link into a page. This seamless integration is enabled by the Widget Connector macro, which supports Loom content.

Discover more about the Widget Connector macro

Single click to copy heading links

For: END USERS

You can now copy links to headings with a single click in Confluence. This feature helps you quickly share direct links to specific sections, enhancing collaboration by pointing team members to the exact information they need. You don't have to create anchors. Just hover over a heading to reveal the link icon and click on it to copy the link directly to your clipboard.

More about Confluence links

Match system as the new default theme and removal of original theme

For: END USERS

Match system is the new default theme in Confluence 9.1. We've updated it to align with your preferred device theme. If you haven't already selected your preferred theme, you'll automatically see the new default theme applied next time  you log in.

Additionally, original theme has been removed and is no longer available.

Set and use your preferred theme

Updated filtering for Task Report macro

For: END USERS

Adding a new Task Report macro to a page will now filter tasks from the current page by default. This enhancement simplifies task management and page creation by automatically selecting the most common use case. Additionally, this update reduces the need for manual filtering and additional clicks.

More about Task Report macro

More secure login with two-step verification

For: ADMINS END USERS

We’ve updated the Confluence login experience and included a second authentication layer for added security.

You can now set up two-step verification and verify your identity with an authentication app when you log in to protect your account.

Explore how to manage two-step verification

Password policy

For: ADMINS

We’ve added a new feature for admins to enforce a site-wide password policy. This helps prevent users from setting weak passwords and enhances the overall security posture of your Confluence installation.

Configure password policy

Microsoft Entra ID integration

For: ADMINS

Microsoft Entra ID, formerly known as Azure AD, can now be configured as a remote user directory. This integration allows admins to leverage Microsoft's popular cloud-based identity and access management service for streamlined user management.

Configure Microsoft Entra ID integration

Share usage data

For: ADMINS

We’re introducing a new way of sharing instance usage data with us. Now, the Analytics feature is called Usage data sharing and gives you more control of what you share with us.

If you decide to share the usage data of your instance, we’ll start collecting aggregated and de-identified data that we’ll use to improve the performance and scalability of our products. This knowledge will also help us communicate more effectively during a security incident, ensuring we can provide targeted advice and updates to secure your data. At the same time, we don’t collect content from within your instance.

More about usage data sharing

Security monitoring and alerts

For: ADMINS

Admins can now promptly identify and address critical security threats. This feature helps monitor and detect suspicious activities, such as modifications to important configurations or changing access rights.

When the system identifies a threat, admins receive email alerts. These alerts contain suggested actions to investigate and address any possible security threats effectively.

Authorized users can use this feature to view, search, and categorize alerts. Upon viewing an alert, a detailed chart depicting the user's historical activities is displayed.

Discover more about security monitoring and alerts

OAuth2 for Application Links supporting 3LO

For: ADMINS

We’re now offering OAuth2 as a more secure protocol for integrating our applications together via application links. This will also ensure you can maintain connected workloads between Atlassian on-premises and FedRAMP Cloud applications.

This will not impact existing application links.

Explore how to upgrade your configuration

Dark theme support for custom logos and color schemes

For: ADMINS

We've introduced the option to customize logos for both light and dark themes in Confluence. This allows you to upload separate logos for each theme, ensuring that your branding looks great regardless of the theme set by users.

To make things even better, you can now also set up a separate space or site color scheme for dark theme. This feature helps you tailor the color palette to complement the dark background with light text in dark theme.

To set up custom logos and global color schemes, go to the Administration menu, select General Configuration, and then under Look and Feel, find the Global color scheme and Site logo and favicon sections.

Discover how to configure the global color scheme and site logo

Retention rules performance and reliability improvements

For: ADMINS

We’ve improved the background process that identifies and deletes page or attachment versions and purges deleted items from trash according to the retention rules in place.

During internal testing, we’ve observed that the process is more reliable and runs at least four times faster—and sometimes significantly faster. The user experience of setting up and using retention rules remains unchanged.

Set retention rules to delete unwanted data

New REST APIs

For: ADMINS

We’re excited to introduce a new REST API designed to streamline permission management and improve efficiency for admins. This API allows you to view, set, and revoke permissions for spaces with a more flexible and automated approach for managing user access. Previously, these actions could only be performed through the user interface or the legacy RPC API.

We’ve also added new REST API methods in Confluence to help you manage labels by simplifying the process of organizing and maintaining your content. The new methods include retrieving labels that are related to a specific space, accessing a list of labels that have been recently used, and removing outdated labels associated with a certain space.

Another addition is a new REST API that provides essential metrics about your Confluence instance. This API offers a simple way to access key data including the number of spaces, pages, and users as well as current server details. With this method, you can monitor and manage your instance more effectively.

Visit our REST API documentation for the new methods to use

Secure your Confluence Mobile iOS devices with OAuth 2.0

For: ADMINS

Starting from the Confluence Data Center iOS mobile app 2.0, you can use the OAuth 2.0 authentication flow to improve Confluence’s security and enhance session restoration. Activating OAuth 2.0 will also allow your mobile device to download, store, and use client authentication certificates, such as Fast IDentity Online 2 (FIDO2).

Enable OAuth 2.0 for Confluence Data Center mobile app 

Default encryption

For: ADMINS

The implemented changes now ensure that unsecured plain-text secrets in Confluence are no longer a concern for admins. To strengthen product security, default encryption has been implemented for sensitive passwords and secret key information. We'll automatically protect certain plain-text sensitive values in Confluence configuration files using AES 256-bit encryption.

Advance Notice: take a peek!

Improved exact search

For: ADMINS END USERS

We've enhanced exact searches in Confluence to provide more specific results. Exact searches will now return more precise matches, ignoring wrapping punctuation and capitalization. This improvement has been made to visually guide users to the displayed search results.

Additionally, we’ve introduced an experimental feature to significantly speed up the indexing process for an instance to help alleviate the additional resources improved Exact Search requires. 

Note that these two features are disabled by default, you can enable them via the following dark features:

• confluence.search.improvements.exact

• confluence.indexing.improvements

We encourage you to try it in your staging environment and share your feedback with us.

Faster space deletion

For: ADMINS

We’ve improved the speed and scalability of the space deletion process, making it 10 to 50 times faster. You can now more efficiently manage and maintain Confluence by quickly removing unwanted data. This feature is geared towards enhancing the overall performance and reliability of your system.

In Confluence 9.1, this feature is disabled by default. Admins can enable it via the confluence.fast-space-deletion dark feature. We encourage you to try it in your staging environment and share your feedback with us.

More about space deletion

Resolved issues

For full details of bugs fixed and suggestions resolved, head to our public issues tracker on Jira.

Get ready to upgrade

Before you upgrade, check out the Confluence 9.1 upgrade notes for important changes in this release, then follow the usual upgrade instructions to upgrade your site.

Credits

Our wonderful customers... 

You play an important role in making Confluence better. Thanks to everyone who participated in interviews with us, made suggestions, voted, and reported bugs!