Unable to Retrieve Email Address for One Atlassian User via Confluence Permissions API

Question

Hi Team,

I'm fetching Confluence space permissions using the REST API. For each permission entry, I retrieve the user details.

Out of 10 users with "accountType": "atlassian", the API returns the email address for 9 users, but for one user the email field is blank.

I've already checked the user's profile visibility settings, and the email visibility is set to "Only you and admins/everyone". However, I'm still unable to determine why the email is not being returned for this specific user while it is returned for the others.

API: f"{base_url}/rest/api/space/{space_key}?expand=permissions"

Could you please help clarify the following?

Is there any additional user, site, or organization setting that controls whether the email address is returned by the API?
Is there any UI setting that an administrator can enable or disable to consistently return (or hide) email addresses for all users?
Is this behavior expected for managed Atlassian accounts, or are there any API scopes or permissions required to retrieve email addresses for every user?
If there is an administrative setting, could you please share the navigation path to configure it?

Thanks,

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Hello @jaya krishna gonuguntla _CW_

Let me back up a step.

You said in your original post:

I'm fetching Confluence space permissions using the REST API. For each permission entry, I retrieve the user details.

And later in the original post you said:

API: f"{base_url}/rest/api/space/{space_key}?expand=permissions"

Are you doing two API calls or one? Are you executing an API call to retrieve the permissions for a space, and then a second API call to get the details for each user returned in the first API call? Or is the above API call the only one you are executing?

Also, are you using a POST or GET method? And can you provide a link to the reference you used to get the API syntax you showed? The references I have found for the original Confluence Cloud REST API and v2 of the API don't appear to include a matching endpoint as you've shown.

Lastly are you using a Personal Access Token that you created under you're own account, or a token created under a different account, or for a Service Account created at the Organization level? What is the scope of the token, and what is the level of access (Confluence user, Confluence Space Admin, Confluence Admin, Organization Admin) for the user/service account under which the token was created.

Gabriela - LeanZero · Answer

Hi @jaya krishna gonuguntla _CW_, your own test is the answer here: this isn't a propagation delay, so there's no wait time to expect. Getting the email back for a user set to "Only you and administrators" is only possible when the account your API token authenticates as has admin-level visibility, even if you personally aren't an org admin. That's exactly why toggling a user's visibility setting doesn't move what you receive.

The single user who stays blank regardless isn't a visibility case at all, it's that account's state: almost always deactivated or deleted (Atlassian keeps the accountId, and it still reads accountType "atlassian", but the email stops returning), or a person your org's directory doesn't manage. Running that one accountId through the Organizations users/search endpoint I mentioned above settles it either way: if the email comes back there it was purely a privilege/path thing, and if it stays blank the account is deactivated/deleted or isn't managed by your org.

Gabriela - LeanZero · Answer

Quick correction to my own answer above, because the timing caught me out on this one: skip the v1 org user-search endpoint I mentioned - Atlassian retired the v1 organization user APIs at the end of June, so it won't get you anywhere now. Reach for the v2 one instead:

POST /v2/orgs/{orgId}/directories/{directoryId}/users/search

with your searchTerm in the body. Email comes back by default there, so there's no special expand needed for it - and same idea as before, it returns the address regardless of the person's profile-visibility setting, which is what gets you past the null you're seeing. You'll need the org id and the directory id (both from your Atlassian admin settings) plus an org admin API key.

Sorry for the mix-up on the version.