How can I display a list of all Confluence spaces, disobeying permissions?

[Andrew Snyder]

This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: Spaces List Macro

Does anyone out there know how I can generate a list of all spaces in our Confluence instance that ignores the permissions of the currently logged-in user?

The existing Spaces List macro obeys permissions, and only displays a list of spaces that a user has access to see.  This is a solid implementation from a security perspective.  However, I am interested in generating a list of all Confluence spaces, regardless of whether the logged-in user has access to see that space.  This may be undesirable for many other Confluence instances out in the world since acknowledging the existence of a space to users that don't have access to it is bad from a security perspective.  However, the Confluence administrators at my company have decided that allowing all users to see a list of spaces that they may or may not have access to is desired.  Otherwise, users may create duplicate content by accident when the content already existed in some other location that they should have gotten access to.

[Andrew Snyder · Accepted solution]

I found the answer to my question over in another thread - https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/43122 - specifically in the 2nd comment from Aaron J. Schmidt.  It provides the code to generate a macro that shows a 4-column table.  The columns are:

1. Space - the name of the space.  Clicking on the name brings you to the space.
2. Key - the space key.  Clicking on the key brings you to the space.
3. Users - the list of admins that have admin permissions via the "users" permission
4. Groups - the list of admins that have admin permissions via the "groups" permission

It includes spaces that the logged-in user doesn't have access to.  When the user clicks on a link to a space that they don't have access to, they receive a warning saying that they don't have access to it.  This is exactly what I was looking for!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

If you're worried about users creating duplicate content, then the obvious answer is that you should un-hide the stuff they're duplicating.

I don't think there's any sense or value in telling people "hey, there's a space over there for that... but we're not going to let you see it".

But, if you must do this, you're going to need to do some coding - you'll need to construct a version of the macro that runs the "list spaces" as though it's an admin.