Copy page also copies attachments by default

[Patrick Vanhoof]

Using Confluence 7.2.

When copying a page, the option to also copy the attachments is a standard enabled. Lots of users don't even notice the option and just copy the page. With a lot of duplicate attachments as a consequence.

Is there a way to disable that option by default?

Wat are the use cases to have it standard enabled?

Thanks,

Patrick

[Max Foerster - K15t · Accepted solution]

Hey @Patrick Vanhoof ,

since every picture on the page is basically also an attachment, I can understand that this is the standard here. Imagine you copy a page, maybe move it to another space and attachments would not be copied but only referenced from the original page. 

Imagine to copy this page again sometime, how should attachments be handled then? I think this would very soon become complex and cumbersome, and we are not even talking about changing access to the "original page".

In fact, it is easier to copy everything and have the user take care of removing unneeded attachments. You just have to make sure that the users are aware of the processes and make them understand the implications - so to speak: to educate/train them.

I'm not aware of any way to change this behavior in Confluence. I know this might not be what you want to hear, but if you really need this option, you should take a look at the apps available in the marketplace. I have included a screenshot of our own application called "Space Admin for Confluence", which comes with a built-in space browser for improved content management and enhances the available operations like copying a page (choosing what to copy and what not). You might want to try it (and its other features as well.)

I'm sorry I couldn't help you more here!

Best, Max

[Patrick Vanhoof]

Hi Max,

Thanks for your answer.

I can understand that in some/many cases it is useful to have attachments copied too. But it wouldn't be so cumbersome if one didn't have to delete the attachments one by one if not needed... But there is always the option to delete the copy and re-copy the page without the attachments.

It is indeed a case of education/training. So we will keep the standard :)

Regards,

Patrick

[Andreas Jagel]

From my experience it is an issue, that even unreferenced attachments are still copied. Simply increasing storage usage without benefit. Users don't expect this to happen. If they delete the file on the page, they expect it to be deleted as an attachment. But the attachment stays and is copied over and over.

[Brad Fitpatrick]

100% agree. We are having the same issue where a user has 16 attachments that are referenced on a page used for a weekly status report. Every week they have been copying the previous weeks page with the default option selected "Include attached files and images" then they would add 16 additional attachments to replace the previous weeks. The point is, the user had no idea, that the unreferenced attachments on the page, we were also being included until the system timed out and failed to copy the latest page because there were now 287 attachments. 

Any know feature requests for this or a way to prevent this with requiring an add-on?