Can my inactive Confluence site be reactivated or my data recovered?

Question

Hi Atlassian Community,

Few months back, I received an email saying that my Confluence site is being deactivated due to inactivity.

I understand the inactivity policy, but I have important personal and work-related information stored on this Confluence site that I would really like to preserve.

The site has already been inactive for several months. Is there any way to reactivate the Confluence site, even temporarily, so that I can access and export my data?

If reactivation is no longer possible, is there any data recovery or backup option available before the data is permanently deleted?

I would really appreciate any guidance on the steps I should take or the appropriate Atlassian support team I should contact.

Thank you!

Josh · Answer

For Atlassian Cloud sites deactivated for inactivity, self-serve reactivation from the UI is usually gone once the site has been fully deactivated for a while. Recovery is almost always an Atlassian Support request, and it is time-bound.

Practical steps:

* Open a support request at support.atlassian.com (or via admin.atlassian.com → Support) with the exact site URL / cloudId if you still have it, the deactivation email date, and that you need data recovery / site reactivation.
* Ask explicitly whether the site is still within the retention window for inactive Free/Sandbox sites — that window is limited; after it passes, content is not recoverable.
* If you still have any admin invite, export, or backup from before deactivation, keep it — Support may ask for proof of ownership (billing email, old invoices, domain).

There isn’t a Community-side toggle we can flip for you. Act on the Support ticket sooner rather than later; months of inactivity is near or past typical retention for some site types.

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Hello @AK Patnaik

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

If your Free subscription was deactivated more than 14 days ago it is unlikely that the data can be recovered. Free subscriptions that are deactivated due to inactivity are permanently deleted by Atlassian 15 days after deactivation. They do not keep backups that can be used to restore individual customers' data.

I wrote an article on this topic which you may find helpful for future reference if you choose to continue to use Confluence Cloud:

Atlassian Jira/JSM/Confluence Free Tier Inactivity & Data Deletion Timeline

If you still want to reach out directly to Atlassian about this, contact Atlassian Billing, Licensing, & Pricing support for assistance. Select the options Your Account and Reactivate a subscription.