Attachment Links (Copy / Paste not possible anymore)

[AAA]

Due to an update to the user interface, users can no longer copy and paste links to attachments from a page’s attachment view.

It was already a faff before, but now it’s simply impossible, unless you want to use the attachment macro, which isn’t an option.

Why is Atlassian making things increasingly complicated for users? Or did you fail to test the UI update and forget to add links for listed attachments in the relevant view, meaning this is ‘just’ a bug? Hopefully this will be fixed soon...

[Cristian Quiroz Garcia - NTT DATA · Accepted solution]

Hi @AAA !

You're right — this is a known regression in the new Confluence editor. The ability to copy/paste attachment links and create clean text hyperlinks to attachments was removed when Atlassian migrated from the legacy editor to the new one.

Related open tickets on jira.atlassian.com:

• CONFCLOUD-84256 — "New Editor: Add option to display an attachment as a plain text hyperlink (feature parity with Legacy editor)" — Unresolved
• CONFCLOUD-83915 — "Restore the ability to upload a file as a plain link from the link dialog" — Unresolved

What changed:

In the legacy editor you could:

• Highlight text → Link → select an attachment → get a clean text hyperlink
• Right-click an attachment thumbnail → change display to a text link

In the new editor, neither option exists. Attachments can only display as cards or inline Smart Links.

Current workarounds are to:

• Upload the file via Add image, video, or file and then change its display
• Upload the file, copy its URL from … → Attachments, and paste that into the link dialog — note that this triggers a file download instead of opening a preview, so it's not a perfect solution.

I'd recommend voting and watching CONFCLOUD-84256 and CONFCLOUD-83915 to increase visibility with the Confluence team. The more votes, the higher priority it gets.

Hope this helps!

[AAA]

Thanks! I really don’t understand why Atlassian makes it so difficult for ordinary users to carry out simple tasks such as adding a link to an uploaded attachment.

I’ve voted for the two suggested ConfCloud entries.