How to import a space without including the users of that space?

[Dieu Anh Nguyen]

I exported a space (XML file) from Confluence account A and imported that space to Confluence account B (XML file), when the space was imported successfully, it includes all the users' accounts of that space (Confluence account A) to the users' list of Confluence account B. I don't expect it to include the users of that space. Will there be notifications sent to those users (which I do not want to happen)?.

How can I import a space without adding the users of that space to my list? Thank you

[Winslow Dalpe · Accepted solution]

We brought this scenario up with Atlassian support and were directed towards https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-72064

Sounds like Atlassian is aware of the behavior. Hopefully it will gain traction and be resolved.

[Y_ Oezl]

This problem is still exist and very annoying. The bad thing, there is no any Atlassian employee is following this kind of important topics or giving any information about that !!

We are migrating or moving many spaces from one to another. And removing those unexpected users, admin has to do that one by one manually !!! It is just wasting time... like a hell !!!

[Andreas Springer _Actonic_]

If you want to export a space in Confluence, usually, all user data will be transferred as well. In order to avoid sharing personal information while sharing content, you have the option to anonymize the involved users before you export the spaces.

In the marketplace, there are some add-ons that may help you to make your space free of personal user data before sharing it.

Our GDPR solution for Confluence for example gives you the possibilities to create a dummy user, which will replace all the corresponding users in a space while anonymizing it. You can afterwards freely share or edit it without spreading personal information.

[Johannes Mattes]

Same here. @Friedemann Wagner @Diego Were you able to solve the case?

[Diego]

Hello there!

According to our documentation, @Dieu Anh Nguyen , users should not be imported with the Space export:

• Users – The above procedure will not import user accounts. See Integrate with G Suite.

The full procedure is described here:

Import a Confluence Cloud space 

With this in mind, I would like to understand the following:

1. How did you notice those new users?
2. How did you import the space into your Confluence site?
3. How did you export the confluence space?

Let us hear from you!

[Friedemann Wagner]

We had the same issue earlier this year, i cant recall how exactly we did it but we will do it soon again as we are getting content from external vendor. This content (last time) included a lot of user accounts which we then manually deleted. 

I for sure dont know how the vendor exported but next time we import i will document the steps and see if the accounts come again. 

Thanks

Friedemann

[Friedemann Wagner]

and now it happened again. Imported space from our Vendor and 80! new users in our system. 

How can we mitigate this? 
is there a way when our vendor exports the space to leave our the users?

How can we mass delete users from our space?

Thanks a lot

Friedemann

[Friedemann Wagner]

@Diego shall we have a call so that you can view the situation?

Thanks a lot

Friedemann

[Jennifer McMaster]

Is there a solution to this?  I am also having this issue.  We had a vendor who created some confluence pages that we want to import into our Confluence instance, but when I did it imported all of their users as well.  I just want the content, not the users.

[Dave Sugrue]

This just happened to me as well, importing a space from Confluence A to Confluence B. It is extremely dangerous that this occurs automatically, as there are definite GDPR (and possible security) breaches. User profiles along with pictures etc of users from org A should absolutely not be appearing in org B's confluence. Nor should users from org A be automatically given site access to Confluence B.

When exporting, admins should be given the option of removing user data. This should be also flagged when importing a space (i.e. Users who are currently not part of you org have been detected in this import - would you like to add them to your organisation or remove them from the import?).

Thankfully, I noticed the problem immediately and had a very panicked 10 minutes as I manually removed the users from Site B. However, the user's profile pics and names etc appear on pages they created. I've locked the space so nobody can see it, and am going to have to spend a whole load of time copying and pasting the content into new pages so I can delete the old ones and hopefully that will remove the last of the personal info (which basically defeats the whole purpose of exporting/importing). 

I cannot believe this bug has been allowed exist in production given that Atlassian have known about it since April!

If the above will take Atlassian too long to address, an emergency fix should be released immediately automatically removing the user data from all exports/imports. Because as long as this continues, Atlassian, and us as customers, are extremely open to fines and lawsuits under a myriad of data protection laws.

[Winslow Dalpe]

I observed the same behavior recently where users from an exported space were granted access to the destination site when that space is imported.

I exported a space from one site using "Space Settings" > "Manage Space" > "Export Space". I did a full XML export.

I imported that space into the new destination site using the instructions at https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/import-a-confluence-cloud-space/#ImportaConfluenceCloudspacetoanexistingcloudsite-Step2.Importthespacecontenttothedestinationsite

After the space import was complete, when I went to Atlassian Admin for the destination site I saw all the users from the exported space appear in my user list as "Invited. Invitation not sent."

I asked a couple of those users who I knew personally to try accessing a space in the destination site. They were able to access it without any problems and became "Active" in the destination site. I'm very confident these users had not been invited to the destination site by other means.