How to use Space Access

Last updated: 13 August 2026

Space Access answers one question well: who can reach which Confluence space, and how do I fix it without clicking through every space one at a time? This page covers every screen, what each number means, and — at the end — what the app deliberately does not do.

1. Getting there

In Confluence, open Apps → Space Access in the top navigation. The app opens on its own full-width page. There is nothing to configure first.

2. Who can use it

Reviewing and changing space permissions is an administrator's job in Confluence, so the app is for Confluence administrators. This is checked on the server, not by hiding a button, and the app always acts as you: if Confluence would refuse you something on your own, it refuses the app too. The app never borrows extra power.

Important before you buy: changing permissions needs a paid Confluence plan. On the Free edition, Atlassian blocks every space-permission change — for this app, for any other app, and for Confluence's own screens. Reviewing and exporting work perfectly on Free. The app detects your plan when the page opens and says so at the top of Fix in bulk, before you build a change, rather than failing after you press the button.

3. The main list — who has access to what

The app reads every space you can see, then reads the permissions of each one, filling the table as it goes. A progress line says "Reading permissions — 312 of 2,000 spaces", and you can search and filter while it is still loading. There is no 500-space limit.

One row is one person, group or company-wide rule in one space:

Column	What it means
Space	The space key and its name.
Who	The person, the group, "Everyone in the company", or an app account.
Type	`Person`, `Group`, `Company-wide` or `App`.
Access	The access level — see below.
Permissions	How many individual permission entries make up that access. It is the detail behind the label, useful when two people show the same level but one has more.

What "Access" says

Confluence is moving from loose permissions to space roles. The app speaks both languages and picks the right one automatically:

If your site uses roles, the app shows the role name exactly as your Confluence shows it — Administrator, Manager, Collaborator, Viewer — in your own language. The name comes from Confluence, not from a dictionary of ours, so it always matches what you see elsewhere.
If your site still uses loose permissions, the app works out the level from them: Space admin, Can edit, Can view, or Limited.

Searching and filtering

Search matches a space key, a space name, a person's name or a group name.
Access narrows to one level — the fast way to find every space where a whole company can edit.
Who narrows to people, groups or company-wide rules.

Filters work on what is already on screen, so they answer instantly — even mid-load.

The three tick boxes

Three kinds of row are hidden by default because they bury the answer, and the app always tells you how many it is hiding:

App accounts — Confluence hands other installed apps back as if they were people. Left on screen, they inflate your list of "administrators".
Personal spaces — every account has one, and in a company of 300 people they create 300 false administrators in a review.
Archived spaces — usually out of scope for an access review.

4. Exporting to a spreadsheet

Export what I see builds a spreadsheet of exactly the rows currently shown — every column, with people and groups written out by name, not as ID codes. Copy the box into Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. Because it exports what is shown, filtering first is the way to export one slice (for example, every space a leaver can still reach).

5. Fix in bulk — removing access from many spaces at once

This is the part that saves the afternoon. Three steps, and nothing changes until the third.

Step 1 — choose who

Take access away from lists everyone and every group the app found, so you pick the leaver, the contractor, or the group that should no longer reach a set of spaces.

Step 2 — choose where, and read the preview

The app lists every space that person or group can currently reach, with their access level. Untick any you want to leave alone, then ask for the preview.

The preview is read fresh from Confluence, not from the table on your screen. If a colleague changed something five minutes ago, the preview reflects that, not what you loaded. It shows, space by space, what would change — and what the app will refuse to do:

The last administrator of a space is never removed. A space with nobody who can administer it cannot be repaired by anybody afterwards.
You are never locked out of a space by your own bulk change — including through a group you belong to.

Both rules run on the server, not only in the screen, and each refusal is shown in plain English next to the space it applies to.

Step 3 — confirm, and read what actually happened

The run always ends with three honest lists, never a single "something went wrong":

Changed — the spaces that really changed;
Did not change — with the reason Confluence gave, in plain words;
Not tried — anything the app stopped before touching.

What was already changed stays changed. The app does not attempt a half-undo, which is how real damage gets done.

6. What this app changed — the history

The last 200 bulk changes, newest first: when, who ran it, whose access was removed, which spaces changed, and what did not change and why.

This is the only thing the app ever stores, and it stores no names — only Atlassian account IDs, group IDs, space IDs and fixed reason codes. The names you read in the history are fetched live while the screen is drawn. Space names are excluded on purpose too: a personal space is named after its owner, so storing space names would have quietly stored people's names. See the Privacy Policy.

Deleting records

Anyone who can review space permissions on the site sees a Delete button on each record, and a Delete the whole history button underneath. Both ask for confirmation first, and both are immediate and final — there is no undo and no copy to restore from. Deleting a record does not put access back; it only removes the log line.

This is what answers an erasure request under GDPR or similar law: the history is the only thing the app stores, so deleting it is complete. People who cannot review permissions do not see these buttons, and the server refuses them anyway — otherwise the person who made a change could erase their own trace. See the Data Processing Agreement.

7. What the app asks Atlassian for

Only what it needs, and nothing that reads your content:

list your spaces, and read and change space permissions;
look up the display name of a person or group, so screens are readable;
read your site's plan, so it can warn you before a change that Free would refuse;
its own storage, for the history.

It does not ask for permission to read pages, blogs, comments or attachments — so it could not read them even if a future version tried. It has no external network access of any kind, and it never asks you for a password or an API token.

8. Known limits — what this app does not do

Said plainly, so nothing is a surprise after you buy:

Space permissions only. Page-level and blog-level restrictions are a different job and are not covered.
No folders. Confluence does not let apps open inside folders. That is a platform limit, not a choice.
Changing permissions requires a paid Confluence plan (see section 2).
An active subscription is needed for bulk removal. Free for up to 10 users; above that it is a paid app. If the subscription lapses, reviewing, exporting and the history keep working and only bulk removal is turned off — the screen says so before you build a change, never after you press the button.
Removing only. The app takes access away in bulk; it does not grant access in bulk, and it never creates, deletes or deactivates a user or a group.
No undo button. A bulk change is deliberate and is recorded in the history; to reverse one, grant the access back in Confluence.
Confluence only. Nothing in Jira.
No email alerts or scheduled clean-ups. The app acts when you ask it to.

9. Getting help

Email support@saoirsesoftware.com — in English, on business days, with a reply aimed at within two business days. Telling us your Confluence plan and what the screen said gets you a useful answer faster.

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