Confluence Cloud - Retention Policy for Trash (Deleted Pages)

[Matt Finn]

Hey community, 

Does anyone know if confluence cloud has the ability to set retention policies for spaces and pages where content is deleted by the users. 

Looking at my trash, I can see content going back to 2020. 

I'm aware this was possible on confluence server, and that there are plug in's available on Atlassian marketplace. 

Cheers

[Barbara Szczesniak · Accepted solution]

@Matt Finn Welcome to the Atlassian community.

As @Daniel M_ mentioned, you cannot set your own retention rules, but, with regard to Spaces, this change is noted on the https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/delete-a-space/ page:

Starting on January 6th, 2025, we will permanently delete spaces that have been in the trash for at least 60 days. We recommend that all Confluence admins go to Confluence administration > Data management > Trashed spaces before that date to make sure there aren’t any spaces in the trash that shouldn’t be.

[Daniel M. · Accepted solution]

Hey @Matt Finn 

Unfortunately, there isn't another way besides the option you already mentioned from the Marketplace.

There is a Feature Request for this:

• CONFCLOUD-81874: Cloud | Set retention rules to delete unwanted data 

Make sure you add a vote and a comment in that ticket. Learn more about how this helps in our Implementation of New Features Policy.

Regards!

Daniel M.

[Nick Wade -Opus Guard-]

Great answer from @Barbara Szczesniak above noting the shift for Confluence Cloud – now items in Confluence Cloud trash are indeed deleted by Atlassian are 60 days by default.

This is however somewhat of a stand-alone answer for Confluence. Jira answers are via different native tools and policies and manual actions. The Site Optimizer for Jira is an interesting analogous albeit stand-alone tool to Confluence's Content Manager. We wrote about Confluence Content Manager and how to get the best from it earlier.

One other important note about all these is that they rely on some combination of manual user and/or administrator cleanup. For organizations that claim ISO 27001 compliance, or have a SOC 2 Type II report, or are attempting to extract ROI from AI pilots (including Rovo), or generally have regulations about content; such ad-hoc retention is not a great answer. Routine, policy-driven automation for content management is a better choice: that is why we built Content Retention Manager for Confluence (and for Jira) at Opus Guard. Our Runs on Atlassian app allows organizations to map their retention policies and data classifications across all Confluence and Jira content, is available in the Atlassian Marketplace, and you can even assess and report on your content free - without trial or purchase - with our Lite version.