Change page owners

By default, the person who created a page is recorded as the Page Owner. As a result, all pages in Instant 27001 have Maurice Pasman (or one of the translators) as owner.

While this should not be a problem in normal operation or even during audits (the auditor will most likely recognize Instant 27001 anyway) there are options to change page ownership.

1. Via the user interface

Since July of 2023, it became possible to transfer page ownership on a page by page level.

A bulk option is still underway (source ↗️).

2. Using an add-on

Several third parties have developed add-ons that support changing page ownership in bulk (along with other useful features to streamline content management. One of them is Better Content Archiving ↗️.

3. By modifying the backup file

While this is the most technical solution, it offers two distinct advantages:
(1) It works with with Cloud, Server and Data Center editions
(2) This option lets you change all user references; including users who liked, commented or edited the content

In the space backup file, users are referenced by their email address and atlassianAccountId The email address is only used when importing the content into Confluence Server. On Cloud, the user is matched using its atlassianAccountID.

3.1 Determine the desired ID

From your Confluence instance, go to User Management (admin.atlassian.com):

Click Show details for the user whose ID you need. The atlassianAccountId is the last part of the URL of the page that is loaded next:

In this example, the ID is 557058:ff246baa-bb12-45cf-a9d1-977f9082767c .

Note: Later atlassianAccountIds may have a shorter format.

3.2 Update the space backup file

Unzip the space backup file
Open entities.xml in a decent text editor (like Notepad++)
For each occurrence of atlassianAccountId
1. Replace the values of name and lowerName with the email address (in lowercase)
2. Replace the value of atlassianAccountId with the ID you determined in step 1
Be careful not to remove the [ and ]] around the values

Save the file
Re-add it to the zip file (e.g. by drag-and-drop, if you did it right, Windows will ask if you’d like to overwrite the existing file)

3.3 Test the space backup

You need a test instance. If you do not yet have one, create a (temporary) free instance ↗️
Import the space
If the import did not succeed, this can be due to three reasons
1. You re-zipped the entire folder and as a result the exportDescriptor.properties file is not in the /root of the zip (Could not locate exportDescriptor.properties in the archive)
2. The import file has been corrupted when altering. Retry the whole process
3. No apparent reason at all, just Confluence bogging down. Retry the import once more
After the import has succeeded, open the space and check if everything works as expected
The test instance can now be deleted

3.4 Import in production

After you have confirmed the space backup file functions, it is safe to import it in your production instance.