You can 'watch' a Confluence page, blog post or space. Confluence will then send you a notification by email whenever anyone updates the watched content.

You will receive email notifications for:

  • Edits (unless the user clears the Notify watchers check box).
  • Deletions.
  • Attachments, including new versions or deletions of an existing attachment.
  • Comments, including new comments, edits of existing comments or deletions of existing comments.

By default, Confluence will assign you as a watcher of any page or blog post that you create or edit. This behaviour is called 'autowatch'. You can control autowatch. 

There is no daily digest for email notifications. You will receive an email notification every time someone makes a change.

You will not receive email notifications for content changes due to the output of a macro, because the page content itself has not been edited.

You need 'View' permission for the page, blog post or space to receive notifications.

On this page:

Watching an Entire Space

Watch a space if you want to receive notifications of updates to any content in the space.

To start watching a space:

  1. Go to a page in the space and choose Browse > Advanced.

  2. In the left-hand panel, click Start watching this space (or Start watching all content).

To stop watching a space:

  1. Go to a page in the space and choose Browse > Advanced.

  2. In the left-hand panel, click Stop watching this space.

Watching for New Blog Posts in a Space

You can choose to receive a notification whenever someone adds a blog post in the space. You will not receive notification of updates to or deletions of blog posts, nor of comments on the blog posts.

Hint: By default, the option is labelled Start watching space blogs. If you are already watching the entire space, the wording will change to Only watch space blogs. If you choose that option, you will no longer be watching the entire space.

To start watching for new blog posts in a space:

  1. Go to a page in the space and choose Browse > Advanced.

  2. In the left-hand panel, click Start watching space blogs (or Only watch space blogs).

To stop watching for new blog posts in a space:

  1. Go to a page in the space and choose Browse > Advanced.

  2. In the left-hand panel, click Stop watching space blogs.

Watching all Spaces on the Site

You can receive notifications about changes to the content of pages, blog posts and comments from across all spaces on a Confluence site.

To start watching for content changes across the whole site:

  1. Go to your name (the 'User' menu) at the top of the page and choose Settings.
  2. Click Email in the left-hand panel.
  3. Click Edit and select Subscribe to daily updates.
  4. Click Submit.

Managing Watches from your User Profile

The 'Watches' page in your user profile displays a list of all pages and spaces you are currently watching.

To manage your watches:

  1. Go to the 'Watches' view for your user profile, as follows:

    • Go to your name (the 'user' menu) at the top of the page and choose Watches.
  2. Click the envelope icon next any unwanted watches to turn them off.

Managing Watches from the Email Message

The email notifications that you receive from Confluence have some useful links at the bottom of the email message. The links in each message vary, depending on the context. In general, the links allow you to view the page online, reply to a comment, and so on. In particular with respect to setting your notification preferences, you will see one or more of the following links:

  • Stop watching page – Click this link to stop watching the page that triggered the email notification.
  • Stop watching space – Click this link to stop watching the space that triggered the email notification.
  • Stop following this user – Click this link to stop following the user whose update triggered the email notification.
  • Manage Notifications – Click this link to go to the email settings page in your user profile.

Screenshot: Email notification footer showing links

Related Topics

Watching a Page or Blog Post
Subscribing to Email Notifications of Updates to Confluence Content
Watching Changes
Updating Email Address

Take me back to Confluence User's Guide

1 Comment

  1. Jeff Guthrie

    Jan 18, 2012

    Is it possible to only be notified of deletions?

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