Attachments: how to save on Confluence storage and boost instance performance

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Try some of these tips to save storage and boost your Confluence instance’s performance before upgrading from standard to premium. It costs an additional $13,675 per year for 300 users to upgrade from Confluence standard to premium.

Table of contents

Prevention

• Optimize file uploads

• Set file size limits

• External file storage

• Monitor storage

• Backup

Cleanup

• Delete old versions of attachments

• Not shown on any page

• Delete large files

• Delete unnecessary pages or spaces

• Disable automatic creation of personal spaces

• Delete unused or legacy personal spaces

• Automations

Prevention

Optimize file uploads

Encourage your team to use file formats that are smaller like JPEG, PNG or WebP. For images that need to be stored but do not need to be visible on a page compress them as a ZIP to save storage space.

Set file size limits

Limit the maximum file size and attachments per upload to prevent users from uploading large files or using Confluence for bulk file storage.

Administration (wheel icon) > Settings > Configuration > General configuration > Attachment settings. For more details.

External file storage

For large files (think video) that need to be stored, but not necessarily within Confluence, consider using external storage. Then add a link to a page as needed.

Monitor storage

Identify when storage is nearing limits before it becomes a problem.

Get an overview of total storage and more using our app Attachment Manager by Easy Apps.

To see only storage used go to - Administration > Site > Products > Site and products > Storage.

Backup

Regular backups can help you delete with confidence. Use the build-in backup manager (under administration) or a service for offsite backups that connects with Confluence (options on the Atlassian Marketplace).

Cleanup

Delete old versions of attachments

Older versions of attachments are often no longer needed, especially if you run backups. These older versions can also lead to confusion. Older versions are rarely deleted as it takes too much work to do some with confidence.

To delete old versions use Attachment Manager by Easy Apps and select the ‘old versions’ filter. Then bulk delete.

Not shown on any page

If a user removes an attachment from a page it is not automatically deleted. Deleting attachments that do not appear on any page can save both storage and improve Confluence performance.

Use the ‘not visible’ filter with the app Attachment Manager by Easy Apps. Then bulk delete.

Delete large files

Use Attachment Manager by Easy Apps to search all or some of the pages in a space and then sort the results by file size. On a practical level this means videos show first. Deleting a small number of large videos is a quick way to free up storage.

Delete unnecessary pages or spaces

If you can delete parent pages with a lot of children or entire spaces this is a way to both save on storage and reduce clutter. Going page by page is rarely worth the effort.

Disable automatic creation of personal spaces

Savvy Confluence administrators are asking if all new users should get a personal space by default given the long term storage needs and ongoing management. To turn off personal spaces for new users see this article - Administration (wheel icon) > Settings > Security > Global permissions > User groups Edit.

Delete unused or legacy personal spaces

Do former employees still need personal spaces? Do all departments or roles need a personal space?

This can be a significant investment of time, but it has long term savings on storage and administrative time.

Automations

Use automations to do things like auto-trigger notifications. Some examples:

• notify when a page is archived

• notify when page has not been updated for a certain period of time

Note: archiving doesn’t reduce storage

While archived pages are no longer indexed in search they still count towards storage.

Archiving pages that contain attachments in Confluence will not free up any storage. This is because Confluence keeps files to make historical data available to you. (read more)

If still need more storage

If after optimizing Confluence your instance still needs more storage then you have to upgrade.

Once disk usage on the standard plan reaches 250GB per user an upgrade to premium is required. This currently costs an additional $13,675 per year for 300 users.