How can we efficiently manage page restrictions in Confluence without “Restricted by Parent”?

[Christian Cardenio]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand the best way to manage page restrictions in Confluence now that the “Restricted by Parent” option no longer seems to be available.

In our case, we often need to restrict access to a parent page and all of its child pages. Previously, this was quite straightforward because we could manage the restriction at the parent level and have it inherited by the content underneath it.

Now, unless I’m missing something, it looks like restricting a parent page does not automatically restrict all existing child pages. This means that, if we want to restrict a full page tree, we may need to manually edit the restrictions of each individual page, which is very time-consuming and error-prone.

Is there a recommended way to manage this more efficiently?

In particular, I’d like to know whether there is a way to:

• apply restrictions to a parent page and all its children in fewer steps;
• bulk-edit page restrictions across a page tree;
• ensure that future child pages inherit the same restriction model;
• avoid manually updating every single page when access needs to change.

Any suggestions, best practices, or alternative workflows would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Marc -Devoteam- · Accepted solution]

Hi @Christian Cardenio 

Welcome to the community.

How inherited restrictions work.

If someone can’t view parent page or folder, they can't view any child content under it.

View restrictions added to the parent page or folder are inherited down to all content nested under it.

Editing doesn’t work this way.
If someone is restricted from editing a parent page or folder, they aren't automatically restricted from editing child content.

If someone is restricted from editing at the space level, they are restricted from editing any and all content in that space.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

@Christian Cardenio See this page for the full explanation of Marc's answer: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/add-or-remove-page-restrictions/ 

You did not actually say in your post whether you are trying to restrict viewing or editing, but, as far as I know, there has been no change recently to how this works.

[Christian Cardenio]

Thanks for the answers.

My confusion was generated by the fact that I thought also "Open to View" was an inheritable restriction, but it makes sense the way it is implemented :)

[Pearl Shims]

To efficiently manage Confluence page restrictions without relying on "Restricted by Parent," use group-based permissions instead of assigning access to individual users Organize content under dedicated spaces or top-level pages and apply permissions at the space or parent-page level where appropriate. This approach simplifies administration, ensures consistent access control, and reduces the need to manage restrictions on multiple individual pages. Regularly reviewing permissions also helps maintain security and keeps access aligned with organizational requirements.