Disable document file preview

david lovelace July 17, 2017

I DO NOT want to preview a document (.doc, .pdf, etc) in Confluence. I WANT to download it when I select it. How do I accomplish this?

4 answers

3 votes
sagebrushgardener February 21, 2019

What I do is edit the link manually.

1. Go to the attachments page (... / Attachments).

2. Right-click on the file you want, then Copy Link Location.

3. Go back to Edit mode.

4. Click on the link you want to change, then Edit / Advanced.

5. Paste the link you copied into the "Link" field. (I usually delete the "?api=2" at the end, but it probably doesn't matter.)

6. Save

Mike McNamara May 2, 2019

Hmmm... do not see these steps working for me. With the updated link (i.e. added &api=v2, etc to file name) it still opens in preview mode when clicked. I see no difference in behavior (Confluence 6.13.1). Does this work for you?

Philipp Rass September 18, 2019

Works perfectly for me, thank you!

Ronald Verheul May 5, 2023

Does Jira really expect me to take these steps for every attachment in out system? They must be joking.

What Jira fails to understand is that software, like Jira, is meant to make my life easier, not more difficult as Jira does.

2 votes
James McLean September 5, 2018

It has been a year.  Has any solution to this been implemented?

So annoying that Atlassian has forced on us this "powerful new feature" which is not powerful (xlsx previews are laughably bad), and entirely beyond the control of the authors (that is, the users!  This is supposed to be a wiki.)

1 vote
Stefan Baader September 9, 2017

Disabling the preview will also disable to click on an image and get a larger  view. Have a look on this issue and vote for a solution: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-36899

Joyce October 22, 2018

Chanced upon your hack in the comments, works like a charm even for 6.11.2. Thanks a lot!

0 votes
AnnWorley
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
July 17, 2017

Go to <base_URL>plugins/servlet/upm/manage/all, find Confluence Previews and disable it:

Screen Shot 2017-07-17 at 2.54.22 PM.png

david lovelace July 17, 2017

That wants me to be an admin. I'm a user and I (and many others) find this feature very annoying. Can't I turn off this feature as a user?

I have found that the link with preview looks something like:

http://xxx.xxx.com/pages/viewviewpage.action?spaceKey=AAA&title=BBB&preview=PATHtoPDF#CCC

and if I just press middle click which will simply download the file, the link looks like:

http://xxx.xxx.com/pages/viewviewpage.action?spaceKey=AAA&title=BBB#CCC

Note that the "&preview=..." is gone.

Do I need to write a Greasemonkey script to clean up these annoyinig links? There has to be a better way to do this.

AnnWorley
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
July 17, 2017

There isn't a setting in the user profile for turning off file preview. You can right click an embedded attachment and choose Save As (phrase depends on browser) to download it without previewing first.

soumyajit March 29, 2018

I want to only disable xlsx preview ? Is it possible.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
March 30, 2018

No, disabling the add-on does it for all users and file types.

Harley Liston July 5, 2019

Something has changed since the new Jira view has been forced on all Jira instances hosted in the Cloud.  I've been digging for a week but can not find a way to disable the Cloud preview of Attachments.   

Also, when we try to right click and download, it provides an HTML download not the actual attachment. 

Please help, I can't find the "Confluence Preview" plugin either.  

Anh Phi NGUYEN August 26, 2019

Thanks, I found it. (Confluence 6.15.2). Must be Jira administrator. You need to paste "plugins/servlet/upm/manage/all" after your URL.  For example, my log in URL is: https://confluence.xyz.com  then the link should be https://confluence.xyz.com/plugins/servlet/upm/manage/all.

Or you can select cog wheel -> General configuration -> Manage apps -> select "All apps" from dropdown list box -> Ctrl+F (for searching) -> type Previews (or scroll down over half page to see it)

Harley Liston August 27, 2019

Thank Anh Phi Nguyen, 

But unfortunately, we are not paying or utilizing confluence in our Atlassian Cloud account. Which means we have no way to disable this feature in Cloud Jira. Reaching out to Atlassian Support did not relinquish any answers either. 

The New Jira View wont let you right-click and save-as, plus there is now no metadata (date, size, etc) about when a File was attached to a Jira. Which leaves us rummaging around trying to figure out which are new attachments and which ones are old.  

Anh Nguyen March 29, 2022

Sorry I missed an information from my reply that is I am using Confluence on Data Centre, not Cloud.

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