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How do you copy a whole space in Confluence Cloud?

Raúl Marín

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to understand how people copy entire spaces in Confluence Cloud. For example, a template space you reuse for every new client or project, or a full copy before a big reorganisation.

How do you do it today? Copying the page tree, export and import, an app, a script? And what goes wrong or takes the most time: blog posts, permissions, links?

Full disclosure: I'm a developer thinking about building something for this, so I want to understand the problem first. Nothing to sell. I'll post a summary of the answers here.

Accepted answers

James Gamble

Hola Raúl,

For a true reusable “template space,” Confluence Cloud still doesn’t have a native one-click duplicate-space function.

For smaller spaces, the simplest native approach is usually to create the new space and copy the top-level page hierarchy into it. Confluence can copy a page and its child pages, which works reasonably well when the space is mostly pages.

For a more complete copy, export/import is closer to a migration than a cloning workflow. Atlassian recommends CSV when moving a space between Confluence Cloud sites, but there are limitations. For example, databases and whiteboards don’t retain their content/functionality, and permissions tied to groups depend on matching groups existing in the destination.

Permissions are also separate from content. On Premium, you can copy a space’s access settings into a new space, which helps if you’re using a standard project/client-space pattern.

So the pain points I’d expect a space-copy tool to solve are less “can I copy pages?” and more preserving the whole package: hierarchy, attachments, permissions/restrictions, links, blogs, newer content types, and references between copied pages without a bunch of cleanup afterward.

Thanks,

James

Tomislav Tobijas

Hey again Raul,

We have an 'implementation documentation' space, which I usually copy by just copying the overview page together with all child items to a newly created page. Far from ideal, but that template space we have is pretty straightforward, so it works. 🤷

There's also this feature request related to it: CONFCLOUD-3191: Easily create a copy of an entire space

On the other hand, export > import spaces has been a disaster as we had to move a couple of spaces from different sites that contained a lot of whiteboards and databases 🫠 That took us a while, as we had to do a lot of things manually, but I believe there are two trackers around this:

Cheers,
Tobi

Kris Klima _K15t_

Hi @Raúl Marín

I'm late to the party but I'd first define what do you understand by copying a space.

To me, it's three things:

Creating a one-off carbony copy of the specific space's content. Thare are apps for that. Some can apply a prefix/suffix to all pages - Copy Page Tree by Appfire.
Creating a series of carbon copies of a single space as that space develops. There is an app for that and it enables semantic (and othert types of) versioning of a Confluence space - one carbon copy, or a snapshot, at a time - Scroll Content Manager by K15t.
Creating a carbon copy of a space and keeping the two spaces in automated sync. Whatever changes in the Original space is automatically synced to the Copy. Or the other way roung. And there are apps for that. One of them can even clone/copy/sync spaces across several Confluence sites - Space Sync by Ricksoft.

Is there a more niche use case you're aiming for?

*Disclaimer: I work for the company, K15t, that makes Scroll Content Manager.

All comments

Stoqnsimeonov

James Gamble

Hola Raúl,

For a true reusable “template space,” Confluence Cloud still doesn’t have a native one-click duplicate-space function.

Permissions are also separate from content. On Premium, you can copy a space’s access settings into a new space, which helps if you’re using a standard project/client-space pattern.

Thanks,

James

Anwesha Pan

Hi Raúl Marín 👋🏻

First of all, welcome to community! ✨

Copying an entire space in Confluence Cloud is a known, long-standing pain point for teams that manage client onboarding templates, project kickoffs, or pre-reorganization backups.

Here is a breakdown of how teams tackle this today:

Method A: Native "Copy page tree" (if you don't want to use any Marketplace app)

Manually create a new, empty target space.
Go to the source space’s root page (Space Home) or top-level parent.
Select ... > Copy page tree.
Select the new space as the destination.

Method B: Marketplace Apps

You can install dedicated apps from the Atlassian Marketplace like Copy Space for Confluence, ScriptRunner for Confluence, Space Elephant, or Bob Swift CLI.

Method C: REST API/ Python/ Node Scripts

You can use it to write custom scripts using the Confluence Cloud REST APIs (v1 storage format/ v2 ADF). The script traverses the page tree recursively via parentId, creates corresponding pages in the new space, and streams attachments across.

I hope this helps & resolves your issue. 🙂

Thanks,
Anwesha

Raúl Marín

Thanks James, didn’t know export/import loses databases and whiteboards. Have you had to do this for a client yourself? What did you use last time and how much did you have to fix after?

Raúl Marín

Thanks Anwesha. Have you used any of these on a real space? Wondering which one worked best for you and what you still had to fix by hand.

Anwesha Pan

One of my teammates did option1 since option2 is not available for us at org level. It was pretty straight forward but there were some flaws

Links still pointed to old space
You might have to fill in the gaps for space permissions

Are you trying to duplicate a space within the same Confluence Cloud site or migrate a space to a completely different Cloud site?

Raúl Marín

Mostly within the same site, like a template space that gets copied for every new project. Do you remember roughly how long the cleanup took your teammate? And is the no-apps thing a company policy, if you don’t mind me asking?

Tomislav Tobijas

Hey again Raul,

There's also this feature request related to it: CONFCLOUD-3191: Easily create a copy of an entire space

Cheers,
Tobi

Raúl Marín

Cheers Tobi, the implementation docs space is pretty much the case I had in mind. How often do you create a new one from the template? And after duplicating the overview page, is there anything you still fix by hand, like links or permissions?

Kris Klima _K15t_

Hi @Raúl Marín

I'm late to the party but I'd first define what do you understand by copying a space.

To me, it's three things:

Creating a one-off carbony copy of the specific space's content. Thare are apps for that. Some can apply a prefix/suffix to all pages - Copy Page Tree by Appfire.
Creating a series of carbon copies of a single space as that space develops. There is an app for that and it enables semantic (and othert types of) versioning of a Confluence space - one carbon copy, or a snapshot, at a time - Scroll Content Manager by K15t.
Creating a carbon copy of a space and keeping the two spaces in automated sync. Whatever changes in the Original space is automatically synced to the Copy. Or the other way roung. And there are apps for that. One of them can even clone/copy/sync spaces across several Confluence sites - Space Sync by Ricksoft.

Is there a more niche use case you're aiming for?

*Disclaimer: I work for the company, K15t, that makes Scroll Content Manager.

Tomislav Tobijas

I wouldn't say that often. 1 per month or so.

As this one is pretty straightforward, we don't need to do much after copying. We do have some folders or pages that are restricted to internal users, but we use groups for that. Permissions do copy if you copy the full page tree (if we're talking about page/content permissions).

The main thing that's left is configuring space permissions for users and/or groups.

Mahjoubi Jalel

Hi Raúl,

Disclosure first: I'm the developer of Space Copier for Confluence, so take this as a vendor's view.

Your "template space copied for every new project" case is exactly why I built it. A space admin marks the template space as a template, and anyone who can create spaces picks it from Apps > Space Copier. The new space gets the page tree in the same sidebar order, attachments, labels, page restrictions and blog posts. You can also put variables like {{Client}} or {{Project}} in page titles and content: the app asks for the values and fills them in everywhere, which also avoids the duplicate-title problem across spaces.

What it doesn't copy, so you know what's left to do by hand: page history, comments, whiteboards, databases, and space permissions (the new space gets your site's default permissions, so you set access once after creation).

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1678477944/space-copier-for-confluence

Happy to answer anything about how it handles your template.

Raúl Marín

Thanks Kris. Mostly the first one, a template space copied for each new project or client. From what you see, what do people still complain about after that kind of copy?

Raúl Marín

Thanks Mahjoubi, the {{Client}} variables are a nice idea. What made you build it, did you run into this yourself?

Mahjoubi Jalel

Thanks Raúl! Partly, yes: I kept seeing the same setup in teams I worked with, one space per client or project, rebuilt by hand from a “model” space each time, then a round of find-and-replace for the client name in titles and pages. The copy itself was the easy part. Renaming everything and fixing the order afterwards was what took time, so the variables came first in the design.

Out of curiosity, in your case is it more one space per client, or per project? And roughly how many a year? That changes a lot which approach is worth it.

Kris Klima _K15t_

It's mostly duplicit of page titles and information.

But then, it depends. If you're copying template and building new content from scratch - users will be fine. If you're strictly controlling access to the copied spaces, so that each space a has a dedicated pool of users and no overlap - users will be fine.

Raúl Marín

Thanks everyone, here's the summary I promised.

How people copy a space today:

Copy the page tree from the top page into a new empty space. Fine for spaces that are mostly pages, and page restrictions come along if you copy the full tree.
Export and import is closer to a migration. It loses whiteboard and database content, so it's not great for copying.
Apps, depending on the job: one-off copies, versioned snapshots, or copies kept in sync across sites. Kris's breakdown above is a good map.

What's still left to do after copying:

Space permissions. Only Premium can copy a space's access settings. For Tobi's team this is the main manual step.
Links can still point to the old space when you copy part of it.
Duplicate page titles and content when the same template is copied for every client.
Blog posts don't come along with a page tree copy.

One thing I ran into while testing: on a site using the new space roles, a copy that tried to keep the original space permissions failed outright, while copying with default permissions worked.

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