Can I hide a specific space from the space directory in a Data Center installation?
Asked by Alberto Salamanca:

We are a large public entitiy and are hosting Confluence in our Data Center.   

Some spaces that have pages with general "Can View" permission should nevertheless NOT appear in the space directory that is visible to all users.

Is there a way to not have the space appear in that directory?

Thanks for your support.


Answers:
author: Nicolai Sibler
body: Did you consider to archive the space (set its status from *current* to *archived* in the space details)? As [@Nic Brough -Adaptavist-](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/781454) said, it's not possible to hide a space. But you could make it a little harder to find.

comments: author: Alberto Salamanca
body: Thanks for the hint. But its a space that is very much in use. Some pages are only visible to specific users anyway, but some are meant to be viewable for an larger audience. Of course, somebody could stumble upon those pages by chance, and I\`m aware that I have to accept that. But the space directory that is published on a confluence page and even worse, the daily "what happend in the last 24h in all pages that you are able to view" Email announces the existence of those spaces and pages to an audience that is not controllable.

To give you some idea: Our entity has about 400 employees. The whole organisation has around 110 000 employees who could get a hint and view content that is not meant for them. And we can\`t really have 400 Confluence accounts just to limit the number of people who can view those pages.


author: Nicolai Sibler
body: I'm sorry, but I don't understand your concerns about archiving the space in detail.

As far as I understand it, archiving a space has basically two effects:

* It doesn't appear in the space directory in the "All Spaces"-Tab
* Its content is excluded in the search unless the very checkbox is ticked

As for the daily E-Mail-Report, it's for Confluence users only and changes in archived spaces are not reported.

As for the space directory on an page - I admit you cannot hide the space there if the very checkbox in the Spaces Macro is ticked.


author: Alberto Salamanca
body: Hi Nic,

Thanks for you kind support and patience.  
I have to admit I\`m not 100% familiar with all implications of an archived space.

Is it still accessible through an url?

I will look into that option. I might be a solution for some pages.


author: Nicolai Sibler
body: Hi Alberto,

unfortunately, Atlassians documentation about archived spaces is not really sufficient, so let me try ...

While the term *archive* implicates rather a space which is not in use and you dig a hole to put the space in and forget about it, the function actually means to put the space and its content on a slightly different index. You will not recognize about the fact that the space is archived in terms of navigating, editing and all other technical functions in daily use. This includes accessbility through an URL and sharing pages with authenticated users.

We have some archived spaces in our instance and I can confirm the effects as mentioned above.

Kind regards,

Nicolai

Edit: There may be some implications I haven't met so to have it bullet proof, consider to raise a support ticket.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: No, you can either see a space, or you can not.

comments: author: Alberto Salamanca
body: Sure, but in some cases, I might not want to publish the existance of a space to everybody on a directory listing page, even if in a "everybody can view" konfiguration.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Out of curiosity, why would you do this?

The space directory is designed to be a list of things you can see. Why would you want to break it by removing items from the list?


author: Alberto Salamanca
body: In our use case, the confluence data centre installation is run as a central IT service in a large governmental entity.

The issue is not specific what I can see, but what everybody else can see.

<br />

I am a "client" who is managing several spaces for one specific subordinate entity. All other separate entities, or "clients" need not know of our spaces, pages and need not be notified of the daily changes, names of pages that have anonymous "view" permission.

I know that by removing the "can view" permission to anonymous users for everything, I might be able to solve the problem.

But for our use case, we need to have a "view" permission to staff of our entity that don\`t have an account as well.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Ok, but hiding an entry in a list of things you can see doesn't simplyify things for people. I don't think there's any benefits to that.

It sounds like you have a wider-ranging visibility problem and a review of who can see what is probably a worthwhile exercise!

I'd also consider creating a simple curated "space directory for us" as a page, then you can include whatever spaces you want in the list!


Tags: confluence-server

data-center

server