Delete a parent page AND its child pages?

[Yasushi Shiba]

Hi.

I am wishing to be able to remove a page and its child pages in one-go. (I'm using version 3.3.1). Even with the space admin right, this is not possible. So after removing a parent page, I have to go to the page that list orphan pages and remove each child page, which can be quite time consuming.

Does anyone know any short-cut/plug-in that allows deleting a parent and its child pages in a simpler way?

Thank you for your support.

[Steffen Heller · Accepted solution]

I use the "Import Word Document" function to delete pages plus their children in one go. For this I create an empty word file, import it and choose the option "Delete existing children of ..."

Here is the step by step instruction:

• Click "Tools" > "Import Word Document"
• Choose the (empty) Word file
• Click "Next"
• Choose the following options at "Where to import":
• (x) Replace ... {name of the parent page}
• [x] Delete existing children of {name of the parent page}
• Click "import"

After this the system imports the empty Word file and replaces all the unwanted pages with it. This one new and empty page can be erased the usual way:

• Open page
• Click "Tools" > "Remove"

Off course you need to be careful with this method because one wrong click and you can easily erase whole spaces!

[Deleted user]

I like your lateral thinking :)

[Thomas Schlegel]

That's tricky :-)

I'm wondering why a simple word import can do things that Atlassian can not bring as a regular function to the surface :-(

[Mick Davidson]

Steffen,

thanks, that's brilliant thinking and it worked. :) I got rid of about 50 pages in a few seconds all in one go instead of having a boring and annoying task that would have taken many, many minutes.

This is why I follow Answers! :)

Cheers.

[David Chiner]

Thanks Steffen!!!

[Joe Cross]

I love that there is a community of users to come up with these workarounds, but I agree with Thomas - sad that Atlassian expects you to be an awesome Google searcher to use their product.

[John Parsons]

@Steffen Heller Thank you sir, you saved us quite a bit of time.

[Teresa Hollidge]

Brilliant! I've been waiting for years for a solution. Thank you!

[Deleted user]

Great! Its working fine.

[Attila Nemeth]

This add on is helpful to delete child pages with permission:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.elitesoftsp.confluence.page.tree.utility.plugins/server/overview

If you need to delete attachment or comment on the page, you can use this add on: 

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.elitesoftsp.confluence.page.utility.plugins/server/overview

[EPS Software Engineering AG]

As Steffen mentioned, is his approach not without problems. Our add-on provides the necessary security and is extremely easy to use. We have customers with 10’000 User based license.

Marketplace link: Page Tree Eraser

[Nagu Chinnakaveti]

Life saver, thanks a lot Steffen. 

[Robbie Robinson]

Great tip Steffan.

Big reorg and had a couple of hundred pages to get rid of.

Worked perfectly

[Andreas Bossard]

If you don't want to workaround in the future, you can vote for a feature request here https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-5974

[Joris De Dobbelaere]

Best work-around ever :)

[Martin Böhme]

Works on Server, Data Center and Cloud :)

[Kfir Wolfson]

Thanks, great workaround for this missing functionality!

[HuseinA]

A quick workaround would be to move the parent page to a temporary Space which will move the child pages along with it. Then remove the temporary Space.

A quick search in PAC led to these awesome plugins:

• Bulk Remove
• Confluence Delete Page and Subpages
• Branch Remover
• Tree Surgeon

[Yasushi Shiba]

Thank you very much for your answer, Hussein. The third possibility seems to be the best. Thanks again.

[Martin Cooper]

Apologies for blatant plug but just to keep list upto date heres another Free plugin:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/treesurgeon

[HuseinA]

Thanks @Martin. I've added it in the list.

[Anne EQS]

Deleting a page incl. it's subpages is such a fundamental function - why this isn't part of the confluence functions?
Deleting dozens of pages manually OR installling a paid add-on OR using some creative workaround - really???

[Paul DeSousa]

To resolve this for my user base, I created a page called "orphaned pages" in each space.  I then took all the orphaned pages under Space Tools -> Reorder Pages and and moved them to the orphaned pages.  Then I gave each space admin one week to go through and make sure they do not want to keep any of it.    After that, I moved each "orphaned pages" to a new space called orphaned and deleted that space.  Kind of a pain, but it worked without too much overhead.

[Paul DeSousa]

The work around we are going to use is to create a space called Trash and then people should just move pages with lots of children to Trash. From there I will simply delete the space each week, and re add it.

[EPS Software Engineering AG]

We implemented exactly this functionality in our Add-on, expect that in your case the Page Title could be a problem. It has to be unique in the trash space. We add the date, time and user to the page title. Like that all page titles are unique and you could restore the pages with our Page Tree Creator Add-on.

Marketplace link: Page Tree Earser

[Anais Victor]

This add on is helpful to delete child pages with permission:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.elitesoftsp.confluence.page.tree.utility.plugins/server/overview

If you need to delete attachment or comment on the page, you can use this add on: 

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.elitesoftsp.confluence.page.utility.plugins/server/overview

[Stephan Sutter]

Hi,

Check out our plugin. It is simple and save to use.

No calls, no tickets, no backup restores. That's your new life. Thanks to the  "Undo Time" and the additional "Page Tree Deletion" permission you can optimize the usability and the security.

Marketplace Link: Page Tree Eraser

Regards,
Stephan

[BroadcomS]

WebDAV interface also works well for this.

[Peter Andersen]

I agree - using e.g. CyberDuck as a webdav client allows instantaneous deletion of a page full hierarchy.

[Stephen Deutsch]

For Confluence Cloud, you can use this addon:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/bulk-action-tools/cloud/overview

[Seb Kouba]

I think I'll set up a Space called "Deleted Pages" and tell people to move pages there. That way they don't need the permissions to create a space and get rid of the documents. If need be they can restrict the page to themselves. An admin can then periodically clear the space if necessary.

[Lukas Knoch -Rumpelcoders-]

Hi , the plugin is not free but not expensive and supports latest confluence version: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/at.rumpelcoder.confluence.deletepagetree Please give feedback, we are willing to implement user requested features.

[DebbieR]

Absolutely none of the recommended plug-ins seem to be available. They've been archived or I can't find them when searching Add-Ons? Is there no free plug-in out there to do this? Thanks

[Michael Brinson]

Any kind of hint as to how we should go about using tree surgeon?

I installed it, but can't find anywhere how I actually can use it now.

[Chitra Patil]

Sadly, none of the plugins work--I have been trying to remove pages in theme documentation. It doesn't work. Even the Word import failed.

[Deleted user]

@chitp - sorry for the extremely late reply (and feel free to kick me if this is a stupid comment), but if NONE of the options work for you, then I'm wondering if you've got 'remove' permission in the space? Nothing will work if you're not allowed to remove pages.

[MitchellM]

There is a plugin (I've not tried) that removes a page and its child pages. See the Delete Page and Sub Pages plugin at https://plugins.atlassian.com/plugin/details/70969.

If you try this plugin, post back here about your experiences. Love to hear how it goes.

[Alexander Evert]

Check plugin [Confluence Delete Page and Subpages|https://plugins.atlassian.com/plugin/details/70969]