How to verify if a former employee had a personal space?
Asked by Ashley Honeycutt:

We have a request to provide access to a manager to the personal space of a former employee.

Is there a way to verify if the user had a personal space if they may have set it to private?

If we do confirm that the space existed, how do we recover the permissions?

I've checked a few places, and it looks like even as an admin I can only see personal spaces listed if they have been shared with me (or a group I'm in).

Thank you!


Answers:
author: Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_
body: Hi [@Ashley Honeycutt](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5065838)

If you go to confluence administration (gear icon) -\> Space permissions, you will see the whole list of spaces. If you know the key, you can filter by it.

If you don't, you can search it by the user ID (you can get the user ID by going into the profile and checking the URL).

With the ID, you can filter by using the Tilde before the ID as shown here:

![2024-09-19 10_32_28-Space Permissions - Confluence ? Mozilla Firefox.jpg](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/348172i00FA06BD272E57C5/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "2024-09-19 10_32_28-Space Permissions - Confluence ? Mozilla Firefox.jpg")

I hope that helps!

Regards

Aaron

comments: author: Ashley Honeycutt
body: Thank you, Aaron. I wonder if there is a difference between versions or something.

When I go to the Space Permissions page, it only lists site spaces. No personal spaces are listed.

I can search from the Space Directory and see a lot of personal spaces listed there (folks who have opened up their spaces for others to see) but even those are not listed in the Space Permissions section. This led me to believe that personal spaces are not managed through that page?


author: Aaron Pavez _ServiceRocket_
body: Sorry, my bad. I didn't check you are in Server/DC. My reply was for cloud.

But the same applies, You have space permissions under the gear icon. Then you can check the user's personal space by using the user name.

DC creates personal spaces using the user name.

Or from Spaces -\> list all spaces. then search for that user space.

Regards


author: Shatakshi Mete
body: Here's how you can handle with personal spaces in Confluence:

### **1. Verify if the Personal Space Exists:** {#toc-hId--2124403768}

* **Check Space Directory:** As an admin, you can try checking the Space Directory. Sometimes personal spaces aren't listed if they are private, but it's worth a look.

* **Direct Search:** Use the search feature in Confluence to look for the former employee's name or any specific content they might have created. This can sometimes help you find their personal space if it exists.

* **Ask Support:** If you still can't find it, you might want to reach out to Atlassian support. They might be able to help verify if the personal space exists and whether it's private.

### **2. Recovering Permissions:** {#toc-hId-363109065}

If you confirm that the personal space does exist and you need to recover or access it:

* **Space Admin Permissions:** If you're an admin, you should be able to take ownership of the space. Navigate to **Space Tools** \> **Permissions** (in the space settings). If you can't see it, you might need to use a different approach.

* **Change Permissions:**

  * Go to the **Confluence Admin Console**.
  * Under **User Management** , look for **Groups** and add the manager to a group with access rights or directly grant permissions to the manager's account.
  * Then, check if you can access the space by adjusting the permissions as needed.
* **Content Export/Import:** If you can't change the permissions directly, you might need to export the content from the personal space and then import it into a new space where you can grant the manager access.


Tags: confluence-data-center

confluence-server

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server