📣 Beta: Folders in Confluence!

[#1]

UPDATE 9/18/24: FOLDERS IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING ROLLED OUT TO EVERYONE! See here for the latest.

👋 Hi Confluence Community,

We’re super excited to announce that we’ve started our beta rollout for one of the top-requested features in Confluence, 🗂️ Folders!

We're starting with a limited release to a set of customers in order to get feedback on key user journeys and iron out any wrinkles.

Here's a quick demo of how folders will work:

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Folders FAQ

Can I still use parent pages?

Yes! Folders are purely additive — nothing will change about your ability to create parent pages.

How are folders and parent pages different?

A folder is a simpler kind of container — it’s just a place to store your content. In contrast, a parent page is a container with a “Read Me” built into the container itself. Use a parent page when you want to provide additional information or context on what’s inside the container. Use a folder when you simply want to group similar content.

When should I use folders?

Using a folder likely makes more sense than a parent page when you need a simple container to organize related content. In other words, if you would have created a blank parent page or a parent page with only the Child Pages macro, then a folder likely makes more sense.

Based on customer feedback over time, parent pages seem most useful in traditional knowledge base / wiki spaces, whereas folders seem more useful in project, team, collaborative, or hybrid use-cases.

Try folders today! Beta sign-up process

NOTE: Due to super high interest, we have met our target enrollment size for folders way more quickly than expected. Thus, we've closed beta enrollment for the time being.

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Ned, on behalf of the Confluence team

[Amanda Barber]

Signed up - thank you!

[Clare Lawson]

I am excited.  Signed up.  Can we see a pic while we wait in anticipation?

[Ned Lindau]

@Clare Lawson added a gif to the original post. Great call!

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

Signed up

[Pramodh M]

Signed up! Thank you

[Balázs Szakál [META-INF]]

Great news! There have been some nice new content types recently.

How about adding API support for them? Currently, the API only supports pages, no whiteboard, no folder, and no smart link. Please consider implementing these into a non-deprecated API instead of the v1 one.

Also, folders should have a customizable home page!

[Andrei Pisklenov _Actonic_]

The solution appears surprising and non-intuitive. The existing implementation already includes "folders" named "Parent Pages" that enable grouping of content under the same topic.

Users can organize pages within a parent page, which displays some content. However, there's a folder that doesn't show any content itself. Instead, users need to open it first before selecting pages to view.

What are the advantages of using folders for users?

[Mirthe]

Nice feature.

However when I rightclick the folder and use 'Copy link', the link refers to a 404 page.

[eric_gagnon_banq]

I was surprised when our users reported me that we had the fonctionnality already without an admin action.

Is it explained by the use of continuous release track?

[Rajshree Chauhan]

Is there a way to convert a Folder to a Parent Page? A shortcut or quicker way than creating new parent pages? 

[Ned Lindau]

@Rajshree Chauhan we're working on conversion functionality right now!

[Milad S.]

Hi @Ned Lindau

Great work. It significantly helped us to clean up the space by getting rid of non-value-adding pages.

I want to second the comment that the folder does not become a smart link (it does not turn into a smart link when you paste the folder URL). It would be great if you could add this feature.

Thanks,

Milad

[Rhys Gottwald]

Hi guys, is there a timeline on release for this feature?

[Ned Lindau]

@Rhys Gottwald we're in the process of rolling it out right now! You should see it on your instance by the end of the month at the latest.

[Ned Lindau]

Demo of working prototype of parent page -> folder conversion! 

https://app.screencast.com/ulXS796JzypQQ?

cc @Rajshree Chauhan 

[Dave Mathijs]

Hi @Ned Lindau Thanks for sharing that video on how to convert a parent page to a folder. Side note: Have you already discovered Loom? 😉

Question: Can two folders have the same name in a space (as opposed to pages)?

[Rhys Gottwald]

@Ned Lindau I can now create a folder, 🤩, but the convert option is not displaying.  Is this expected? 

Oh yes the criteria are met to convert the page

[Ned Lindau]

@Dave Mathijs haha we have external sharing off for Loom :(. And no, unfortunately — folders suffer from the same architectural challenges that pages do (more on this here), and so we cannot currently support two folders with the same name in the same space.

@Rhys Gottwald the conversion feature will be rolled out soon — hold tight!

[Joshua Cole]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for adding this feature!

Feature request? I have parent pages with uploaded emojis to do things like denote when a parent page and its children are related to a specific product (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Microsoft Teams). Can you add that same functionality to folders?

Pretty please? 🙏

Many thanks!

[Milad S.]

Hi @Ned Lindau

Regarding the prototype of converting the parent page to a folder, I just have a quick question. Does the folder have the same name as the archived parent page?

You mentioned that Conflcuen would add a few letters to the end of a page name, but I could not tell whether you were referring to the new folder created or the parent page that was just archived. I think the folder should have the exact name of the parent page, and you need to rename the archived parent page (as it is no longer in use).

Thanks,

Milad

[René Warsow]

@Andrei Pisklenov _Actonic_ 

Advantages? For examble: we have a knowledge base and we needed a visual structure also. When we used pages for that, those empty pages shown also up as an article, useless. Big benefit.

[René Warsow]

FR: please add emoji to Folder name like in pages

[jonb]

Hi @Ned Lindau , I like the idea of Folders.

I think we need a macro similar to Child Pages to display the list of pages within a folder.

Child Pages doesn't work at the moment with the folder structure, presumably because it's not a real page.

[Balázs Szakál [META-INF]]

I'm still supporting this concept, but can't I see the added value over a simple page with a Children Display macro or an app with even better functionality? 
With our app (Advanced Content Navigator), you can insert a page tree with many actions (set status, see unread pages, filter, save view, show tasks, preview page, and more...), while folders currently add nothing to a simple page (you can't even link to them properly). Why would some use folders over a page?

[Marcella]

Hi there!

I personally like this feature, but it would be great if folders have "watch" feature too.

Perhaps you are already working on that?

Thanks