Can Confluence Cloud set retention policies?

[Brian Cavanagh]

We have Confluence cloud. 

We want to set the retention policy for pages, etc., 

Is this possible in Confluence Cloud as it is in Confluence Server?

[Aron Gombas _Midori_ · Accepted solution]

Do you mean the retention rules feature? 

If so, then I am afraid it is not available for Confluence Cloud yet.

Updated on 20 Nov 2025

After we made our research on this use case, we found that content retention perfectly matches the end-to-end content lifecycle management approach implemented by our Better Content Archiving app.

And, therefore, the app now supports automatic content retention!

You can set it up with just a few steps:

1. Open your automation scheme (see above) and add a new automation rule.

2. Set the schedule for when the cleanup should run.

3. Enter a CQL query that selects the pages you want to purge.

   • A typical example is: “archived more than 365 days ago and untouched since then.”

4. Choose the Purge action to permanently remove the matching pages.

That’s all you need for the core setup.

If you want to be extra safe, you can also add a notification step that sends an email reminder a day before the purge happens (or multiple reminders if needed).

It’s simple, flexible, and works well even for very large Confluence sites.

(Discl. this paid and supported app is developed by our team. Free for 10 users.)

[Jill Vieregge]

Do you know of an Atlassian issue where I can watch/vote for a cloud-based retention policy for pages?

[Darin - Opus Guard]

@Brian Cavanagh following up here, check out Content Retention Manager for Confluence in the Atlassian Marketplace. I helped build the app as a solution to set page and global retention policies and as easy as possible. It helps declutter, save you on storage, and help with retention policy compliance (ISO/SOC2). Let me know if you need any help.