Managing groups in Confluence Data Center

This insight appears when your group count exceeds the recommended guardrail of 20,000 groups. Groups in Confluence help manage permissions and access across your instance. The groups metric tracks the total number of groups across all directories - both internal Confluence groups and those synchronized from external directories like LDAP or Active Directory.

How does high group count affect performance?

Having too many groups can impact your instance in several ways:

• Slower directory synchronization and user authentication

• Degraded performance in space and page permission checks

• Unresponsive administration screens

• Increased system resource consumption

• Potential impact on collaborative features

What's the recommendation?

To optimize your group count and maintain performance, follow these steps:

Analyze group distribution

Before making changes, understand your current group distribution:

1. Go to Administration > System Information

2. Download the support zip file

3. Run this query to analyze group distribution across directories:

SELECT directory_name, count(*) FROM cwd_group cg join cwd_directory cd on cg.directory_id = cd.id group by directory_name;

How to get the number users and groups in Confluence Server and Data Center | Confluence | Atlassian Support

Delete empty or unused groups

Start by identifying and removing unnecessary groups:

1. Go to Administration > User Management > Groups

2. Review groups with:

   • Zero members

   • No space permissions

   • No page restrictions

3. For each potential group to delete:

   • Verify it's not used in space permissions

   • Check for page restrictions using this query:

     SELECT DISTINCT(GROUPNAME) FROM CONTENT_PERM WHERE GROUPNAME IS NOT NULL;

      4. Select the group and choose Delete

Configure directory synchronization

If using LDAP/Active Directory, optimize your synchronization settings:

1. Navigate to Administration > User Management > User Directories

2. Select your LDAP directory

3. Configure group filters:

   • Review and adjust Base DN

   • Set appropriate Group Object Filter

   • Test configuration in staging environment

4. Enable incremental synchronization (Microsoft Active Directory only)

   • Select Enable Incremental Synchronization

   • Ensure sync account has required permissions:

     • Read access to uSNChanged attribute

     • Access to Active Directory deleted objects container.

This approach significantly reduces sync times compared to full synchronization, as it only processes changes rather than all directory data.

Connecting to an LDAP Directory | Confluence Data Center 9.5 | Atlassian Documentation

Implement preventive measures

Establish ongoing maintenance practices:

Group naming conventions

• Use consistent prefixes (e.g., "SPACE-" for space-specific groups)

• Include meaningful identifiers

• Document conventions for team reference

Regular maintenance

• Schedule quarterly group audits

• Review group usage patterns

• Monitor group growth trends

• Document group purposes and ownership