Confluence does not have an option to disable RSS feeds from the Administration Console and there is a discussion regarding this in CONF-10755. However there is a workaround on how to disable RSS via some simple modifications that this guide will show.

To disable RSS feeds in Confluence, you would need to disable createrssfeed.action and configurerssfeed.action properties. They are defined in xwork.xml, a configuration file that is zipped in one of the Confluence dependencies library files.

In this guide, we will be modifying global.vmd and configurerssfeed.vm and place a modified xwork.xml within your Confluence installation directory. A modified version of each of the file is accessible from the links below. As ruled at the steps below, you can place them in the corresponding directories where they belong. However, before applying the patch remember to backup your original files.

And then follow these steps:

  • Place global.vmd in "<confluence-install>/confluence/decorators/global.vmd. This newer velocity file will remove the RSS functionalities from Confluence dashboard.
  • Place the customized xwork.xml in "<confluence-install>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/xwork.xml". This file has removed the xwork action so an rss feed can't connect (you'll notice it's commented out):
    <!--
    <action name="createrssfeed" class="com.atlassian.confluence.spaces.actions.CreateRssFeedAction">
    <interceptor-ref name="defaultStack"/>
    </action>
    -->
  • The attached configureressfeed.vm file contains an explanation why RSS is disabled. Place it in "<confluence-install>/confluence/dashboard/configurerssfeed.vm. You can modify the message to suit your need.

In this patch, the changes in xwork.xml above will cause entering createrssfeed.action or configurerssfeed.action into URL leading to the error page defined in configurerssfeed.vm.

To disable the RSS Feeds link in the Advanced section of spaces, you have to unjar the confluence-x.y.z.jar (where x.y.z is the verison of Confluence that you are using) which is located in confluence-install/confluence/WEB-INF/lib/confluence-x.y.z.jar. If none of this makes any sense to you, please refer to this page: Editing Files within JAR Archives

The file you are looking for is plugins/space-advanced-sections.xml.
Remove the following block from this file:

Lines 76-83
    <web-item key="rss" name="Rss Feeds" section="system.space.advanced/subscribesection" weight="10">
        <label key="title.rss.feeds" />
        <link>/spaces/listrssfeeds.action?key=$generalUtil.urlEncode($helper.spaceKey)</link>
        <icon height="16" width="16">
            <link>/images/icons/feed-icon-16x16.png</link>
        </icon>
    </web-item>

Re Jar this file and replace the current confluence-x.y.z.jar file. You will have to restart confluence to see the effects.

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