Import a Confluence Space

Managing Confluence Data

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This page tells you how to import the content of a space. If you want to import an entire site, thus replacing all content and users in your Confluence Cloud site, see Migrate from Confluence Server to Cloud.

You can import content to Confluence Cloud from versions of Confluence Server and from other Confluence Cloud sites.

On this page, we'll use the term 'source Confluence site' or 'source site' to mean the Confluence installation you're copying the information from.

Notes about linked Confluence and JIRA

Please read these notes if your Confluence Cloud site also has JIRA.

  • Linking spaces to JIRA projects. You can link a Confluence space to a JIRA project when importing a space. This will change the space's key to match the key of the JIRA project, but will not modify the space's name. If another space with the JIRA project key is already associated with the JIRA project, you can use one of the following methods to work around the issue:
    • If you want to retain the existing space's content, import your space with its original key, without linking it to a JIRA project, and then associate this space with the JIRA project after the import.
    • If you don't need the existing space's content any more, remove that space before the import. The space importer does not overwrite an existing space.

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Related pages:

  • Changing space keys. Renaming Confluence space keys is not supported in Confluence. Confluence spaces can be linked to JIRA projects as described above, but they will not have matching keys if you do the linking after import. As a workaround, consider changing your space keys using a locally installed evaluation copy of Confluence Server before the import. See How to copy or rename a space in Confluence in our knowledge base

Step 1. Ensure your source Confluence site is compatible

If the source site is another Confluence Cloud site, you can skip this step and move to step 2. There's no need to check the version.  

Confluence Cloud accepts site and space imports from Confluence Server instances running version 5.10.x or later. If your instance is running an earlier version, you'll need to upgrade it before completing the site or space export.

If you need to import a space from an earlier version you have two options: 

 

Option 1. Upgrade a temporary site (recommended)Option 2. Upgrade your source Confluence site
  1. Make a full Confluence site backup (XML export) from your source Confluence site.
  2. Download the latest Confluence version.
  3. Install the new Confluence version into a temporary site.
  4. Import the full backup into the new temporary site.
  5. Continue to the following steps. From this point onwards, the 'source Confluence site' is your temporary site.
  1. Download the latest Confluence version.
  2. Upgrade your source Confluence site to this version (see Upgrading Confluence to find out the best upgrade path for your site).
  3. Continue to the following steps

 

Step 2. Export the space from the source Confluence site

Export the space you want to copy:

  1. Go to your source site and select the space

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  3. Choose Export (this will only be visible if you have the 'Export Space' permission).
  4. Select XML then choose Next

For detailed instructions, please refer to Export Content to Word, PDF, HTML and XML.

(info) If you're using a mac to download the XML export of a space, OS X will unzip the backup, place the unzipped folder in your downloads folder, and put the zipped backup in the trash. In this case, you should retrieve the zip from the trash and upload this via WebDAV so that you can import it into Confluence. If you attempt to upload the unzipped folder, or if you try to re-zip the folder on a mac, you won't be able to successfully import and you'll receive an error stating Confluence can't find the exportDescriptor.properties file.

Step 3. Import the space into Confluence Cloud

If your exported archive is larger than 100 MB, upload the file to your cloud site via WebDAV. For archives smaller than 100 MB, you do not need to use WebDAV to upload data.

  1. Go to your Confluence Cloud site and choose 

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  2. Choose Import Spaces under 'Administration' in the left-hand navigation bar

  3. Do either of the following:
    • If you uploaded the archive via WebDAV, choose the file in the WebDAV Files field.
    • Otherwise, specify your file using the Browse button.
  4. Optional: If you're using JIRA Cloud, you can specify the JIRA project you'd like to link this space to.
  5. Choose Import

Notes about the space import

  • Users. The above procedure will not import user accounts. See Integrate with G Suite.
  • Groups and permissions. The above procedure will not import any groups that may have been granted specific space permissions in your source Confluence site. This means that if there are pages that are restricted to these groups, you may not be able to see them until you recreate these groups in your destination site. 
  • Importing personal spaces. It is a known issue that personal spaces will become global after being imported. The workaround is to create a new personal space and move the imported content to the new space.
    CONF-29898 - Getting issue details... STATUS
Last modified on Jul 26, 2017

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