Clean Copy documentation

Get started

Install Clean Copy from the Atlassian Marketplace (Confluence admin). Every site gets a 30-day free trial. After that it is $9 a month for up to 10 users, then billed per user.
Open Apps > Clean Copy. The How to start a copy box explains the two ways to start, and Your copies lists every copy you have run.
To copy part of a space: open the top page you want to copy, click ••• (More actions) and choose Copy page tree (on some sites it is under Apps).
To copy a whole space: open the space, go to Space settings and choose Copy this space (under Integrations or Apps, depending on your Confluence version).

Every copy starts with a preview. Nothing is created until you click Start copy.

Copy a page tree

The Copy page tree window opens on the page you started from.

Include the selected page itself: on by default. Turn it off to copy only the pages under it.
Space: the destination space. It starts on the current space; pick any space you can see.
Put the copy under: type to search for a parent page in the destination space. Leave it empty to put the copy at the top level of the space.
Then set the title and carry-over options (below) and click Preview copy.

You need permission to add pages in the destination space. You can't copy a page under itself or under any page inside the tree you are copying.

Copy a whole space

Space settings > Copy this space creates a new space and copies the original into it. The original is not changed.

Name: starts as "Copy of" plus the original name.
Space key (letters and numbers): a key is suggested from the name. It must be new and different from the source key.
Description (optional).
Copy who has access (space permissions) from the original space: on by default. If your site can't copy space access when creating a space, the copy shows a warning and the new space gets default permissions. Review Space settings > Permissions afterwards.
Blog posts (text and labels): off by default. Turn it on to copy blog posts too.

The new space is created by you, so you need permission to create spaces. The original homepage content goes onto the new space's homepage, and the whole tree follows in the same order.

Title options

Add before every title and Add after every title: for example "2027 " or " (Client B)".
Find and replace in titles (applied in order): up to 6 find/replace pairs. A new empty row appears as you fill the last one.
Also replace in page text (code blocks are left alone): applies the same find/replace pairs to the body of each copied page.

What to carry over

All of these are on by default:

Attachments (files and images)
Labels
Page properties (used by other apps and macros)
Page restrictions (who can view and edit each page): restrictions are applied by Confluence's own copy operation, so a restricted page is never briefly open. If you turn this off, the preview warns that restricted pages will be visible to everyone who can see the destination space.
Fix links: point links, includes and page URLs at the new copies

If a title already exists in the destination

Confluence page titles must be unique within a space. Choose one:

Rename the copy (adds " (copy)"): the next free name is used, such as " (copy)" or " (copy 2)".
Skip that page and its children
Stop the whole copy

Copying inside the same space without changing titles means every page clashes with its original. The preview tells you what will happen.

The preview

After Preview copy, Clean Copy lists the pages you can see (this can take a moment on big trees) and checks the destination for title clashes. The Preview then shows:

A table of items by type with What happens: pages, folders and blog posts are Copied; anything else is Listed in report only.
Deepest level of the tree.
Warnings, for example titles that clash, restrictions turned off, items Confluence can't copy, or an empty tree.
Titles that already exist in the destination (the first 15, then a count).

Click Start copy to run it, or Back to change the options. Because the preview runs as you, a copy only ever contains content you can see.

When you start, Clean Copy also checks that the app itself can add pages in the destination. If not, you see a warning telling you to give "Clean Copy" add permission in Space settings > Permissions > Apps.

Following a copy

Copies run in the background. You can close the window; the copy keeps going and is listed in Apps > Clean Copy. Open Details on any row to see:

A status: Preparing, Ready, Copying, Fixing links, Done, Stopped, Cancelled, or Paused.
A progress bar and counts: copied, skipped, failed, and how many pages had links checked and updated.
Copy finished with a link to the destination space when everything copied cleanly.
Needs attention: every skipped or failed item, with the reason.

Buttons:

Cancel copy while it runs.
Resume for a cancelled or paused copy. It picks up where it stopped; nothing is copied twice.
Retry skipped and failed after a copy finishes with problems. It retries those items and runs the link fix again over every copy.
Show full report (CSV): one row per item with where it went. Copy the text into a spreadsheet or a .csv file.

Progress is saved after every page. If Confluence rate-limits the app, errors out or restarts, the copy waits and continues on its own. A copy with no progress for 20 minutes shows as Paused; you can click Resume straight away, and Clean Copy also resumes paused copies automatically every hour.

How links are fixed

After the pages are copied, Clean Copy goes through every copied page and updates:

page links, including links written as page URLs and older viewpage.action?pageId= links,
Include page, Excerpt include, Children display and Page tree macro targets,
images and files that reference an attachment on another copied page,
smart links to copied pages.

Links to pages you did not copy keep pointing at the originals instead of breaking. In a whole-space copy, macros with a space key parameter and links to the space home are moved to the new space. Code blocks are never changed. A page is only saved again if something in it changed.

Why was an item skipped?

"The app cannot see this item": the source page has view restrictions that don't include the app. Add "Clean Copy" to the page's restrictions (or remove them), then click Retry skipped and failed. The copy keeps the same restrictions.
"parent ... was not copied": an item's parent was skipped or failed, so the item was held back to keep the tree intact. Fix the parent and retry.
"A page titled ... already exists": a title clash with the Skip or Stop rule.
Whiteboards, databases and smart link embeds: Confluence's API can't copy them. They are listed in the report; pages under them are still copied, under the nearest copied parent.

Licensing and trials

Clean Copy is paid through Atlassian, with a 30-day free trial. If the license is not active, a License not active banner appears, Preview copy is disabled, and starting or resuming a copy is refused with a message to renew in Apps > Manage apps. Your existing copies and their reports stay readable.

Permissions and data

Clean Copy runs on Atlassian's Forge platform and sends nothing to any outside server. The app has no external network permissions.
Copies are made with Confluence's own copy operation, so attachments are never downloaded by the app.
The app stores job plans and progress (page and space ids and titles, and the account id of the person who started the copy) in Forge storage for your site. Page text and attachments are not stored. Job data is deleted automatically after 90 days.
You only see your own copies in Apps > Clean Copy.
Background copying runs as the app, because Forge background jobs can't act as a user. So Confluence shows the app as the creator of copied pages. The report records who started each copy.

Limits and known gaps

Whiteboards, databases and smart link embeds can't be copied (see above).
Comments, page history and space settings other than access (theme, templates, space shortcuts) are not copied.
Blog posts copy their text and labels, not attachments.
Folders at the root of a space that are not under any page are not reached by a whole-space copy.
There is no page limit and pages keep their order at every level.

FAQ

My last copy app failed halfway. What happens here? Progress is saved after every page. Rate limits, errors and restarts are retried automatically, and a stuck copy can be resumed. Items that were half-created during an interruption are detected and reused, so you never get duplicates.

Will internal links and macros break? No. Links, includes, excerpt includes, children and page tree macros and page URLs are pointed at the copies. Links to pages outside the copy keep pointing at the originals.

Are permissions copied? Page restrictions are copied with each page. A whole-space copy can also copy who has access to the space.

Can I check before copying? Yes. The preview shows counts, title clashes and anything that can't be copied before anything is created.

Do pages keep their order? Is there a size limit? Pages are created in the same order as the source at every level, and there is no page limit.

Can I skip or overwrite pages that already exist? You can rename, skip, or stop. Clean Copy never overwrites an existing page.

Where do I find the app? Page ••• menu > Copy page tree, Space settings > Copy this space, and Apps > Clean Copy for your copies.

Uninstalling and your data

Copied pages and spaces are normal Confluence content and stay after you uninstall. When the app is uninstalled, Atlassian deletes Clean Copy's stored job data for your site.

Support

Open a request in the Great Work support portal (linked from the Marketplace listing and from Contact support in the app) or email hello@greatwork.company. First response within 1 business day.