Considering Confluence Cloud?
Get the high-level details of Confluence Cloud and available features by plan.
Control whether spaces can allow public links
Public links allow teams to share individual Confluence pages with people outside of Confluence without giving them access to Confluence. This could be useful for sharing information to the public, like customer FAQs, release notes, shareholder letters, and more. Only people who have the link can access the page.
Public links are allowed in Confluence by default. As a Confluence admin, you’ll find guidance on this page about defaults and how to stop allowing public links in Confluence as a whole.
If you’ve allowed public links and want to know how to allow or stop allowing public links in specific spaces or pages, go to Manage public links across Confluence Cloud.
For details on how public links work, go to How secure are public links?
If you’re looking for help on how to actually share individual pages, go to Share content externally with public links.
Public links are only available on Confluence’s paid plans (Standard, Premium, and Enterprise). Only Confluence pages can have public links, not any other type of Confluence content (e.g., whiteboards, blogs, etc.).
If upgrading from the Free plan to a paid plan, keep in mind that the defaults will allow people in your instance to use public links in all spaces the moment you upgrade.
Default settings for public links
In Global permissions, the global toggle controlling whether the instance should allow the use of public links is set to Allow by default.
This doesn’t indicate whether anything is actually public — it simply indicates whether it’s possible to make anything public.
Global default may differ depending on date of instance creation
If your instance was created before October 16, 2023, the global public links toggle will be off until you choose to turn it on.
If your instance was created on or after October 16, 2023 — including server instances migrating to Confluence Cloud — the global public links toggle will be on. Because all spaces will allow public links by default, this also means all spaces on your instance will be allowing public links from the time you created the instance. You’ll have to turn the global toggle off to stop allowing public links on your instance.
This only applies to the global default setting, not to the space or page defaults.
In Space permissions, the toggle controlling whether the space should allow the use of public links is also set to Allow by default.
Related, in Default space permissions, the setting that controls whether any new space created should allow the use of public links is set to Allow by default.
At the page level, actual public links are off by default.
Change whether public links are allowed
Only site admins or Confluence admins can change this setting. An organization-level control in Atlassian Administration is coming soon.
Public links are allowed across Confluence by default (depending on when the instance was created).
To stop allowing public links across Confluence:
Select the wheel icon () in the top-right corner to open Confluence administration.
Find Settings > Security in the left-hand navigation.
Select Global permissions.
Select the Public links tab.
Toggle off Allow public links on this site.
All active public links on your instance will be turned off and have to be manually turned back on.
The public link toggle on pages will appear grayed out, turned off, and disabled when not allowed, such as when:
The specific public link is blocked by an admin.
Public links aren’t allowed in the space.
Public links aren’t allowed on the instance.
To (re)allow public links on Confluence:
Select the wheel icon () in the top-right corner to open Confluence administration.
Find Settings > Security in the left-hand navigation.
Select Global permissions.
Select the Public links tab.
Toggle on Allow public links on this site.
“Allowing” public links on Confluence makes them available for use. It doesn’t make anything public on its own. With public links allowed, anyone who has access to a page can turn on and share that page’s public link with anyone on the internet.
If public links on Confluence are allowed, learn how to view and manage the public links within each space.
Control whether public links are allowed in new spaces
Public links are also allowed by default when new spaces are created. But there’s a separate control for Confluence and organization admins to turn this off or back on.
To change whether public links are allowed in new spaces:
Select the wheel icon () in the top-right corner to open Confluence administration.
Find Settings > Security in the left-hand navigation.
Select Space permissions.
Select the Public links tab.
Select the toggle that controls whether new spaces should allow public links.
Allow public links in a specific space
Space admins can change this setting, as well as organization and product admins.
By default, all spaces allow public links.
To allow public links in a space:
Go to the space.
Select Space settings in the sidebar.
Select Public links under the Space permissions card.
Toggle on Allow public links in this space.
Similarly to the Confluence-level control, “allowing” public links in a space makes them available for use. It doesn’t make anything public on its own.
To stop allowing public links in a space:
Go to the space.
Select Space settings in the sidebar.
Select Public links under the Space permissions card.
Toggle off Allow public links in this space.
All active public links in the space will be turned off and have to be manually turned back on.
For guidance on how to turn public links on at the page level, go to Share content externally with public links.
Manage active public links in your space
In the Public links tab of Space permissions, space admins can find a table that shows the individual public pages in a space. It will only show pages that are ON or BLOCKED. It won’t show pages that don’t have active publics and aren’t blocked.
For example, if you only just allowed public links in your space, then the list would be empty because no one has had a chance yet to turn on any public links.
To turn off a public link from the pages view in space permissions:
Go to Space settings.
Select Public links from the Space permissions card.
Find the page in the list you want to turn off.
Open the actions menu (•••).
Select Turn off.
To block a public link from the pages view in space permissions:
Go to Space settings.
Select Public links from the Space permissions card.
Find the page in the list you want to block.
Open the actions menu (•••).
Select Block.
To view the public version of the page:
Go to Space settings.
Select Public links from the Space permissions card.
Find the page in the list.
Open the actions menu (•••).
Select View public link.
Pages that are blocked have their public link in an off state and so don’t have a public link to view.
Although you can preemptively block spaces from being allowed, there’s no way to preemptively block pages from being turned on.
Was this helpful?