How do i now discard my changes without saving as a draft?
Asked by David:

*This question is in reference to Atlassian Documentation: [Drafts](https://confluence.atlassian.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=724764879)*

Ask your question here...


Answers:
author: Pawel Furmanowski
body: Hi David.

There's no way to discard unpublished changes at the moment.   
The thing I do is to publish your changes and then revert to the previous version ( three dots --\> History --\> Restore the previous one).

I hope it will work for you as well.

Cheers,

Pawel

comments: author: ssanfelice
body: I'm sorry, but this really is ridiculous. I do appreciate the tip.


author: Brendan Lynch
body: Take a seemingly simple task and overengineer the logic out of it... "Undo" - simple...


author: dan.hale
body: If I revert to the last published version it deletes any pending drafts owned by other people.

Dear Atlassian, you have a net worth of approximately 26 billion and have been developing your products for around 20 years. Can I please have a feature to discard my draft in Confluence, a proprietary product centred entirely around the editing and publishing of documents? Not everyone's drafts, just mine. Please.   

If you need a hand implementing this you can take a look at your self-hosted confluence which gives the option to discard a draft when a user begins editing a page.  

Please do not suggest I use script-runner or upvote a 5 year old feature request.

Thanks


author: Rodney Hughes
body: [@dan.hale](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4368350)

[@Emily Chan](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2689209) 's posted below on 12 May 2019 does say that is exactly what happens

She says that

* you are informed who (other than yourself) had made unpublished changes in the draft, before you confirm to discard the draft
* currently there is no way to tell exactly which edits were made by whom

Given that was said 2 years ago, I'm not holding out much hope.

I can't say I agree that it is the correct outcome ?

Can you confirm if that once published, the page history of the draft is converted into actual history with each editor's draft version truly recorded?


author: Ana Retamal
body: Hi David, currently it's not possible to discard changes in a draft, as they're autosaved. We have already a feature request for that and you can find it at [CONFCLOUD-45721](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-45721). You can vote for it to increase it's popularity and watch it to receive further updates, you can also add your thoughts in a comment.

Let me know if you have any questions :) Otherwise, you can accept the answer as valid.

comments: author: David
body: Does this include the draft itself, once saved, when the document has been previosly published?


author: philoye
body: A workaround is to publish the page and then revert to the previous version in Page History.


author: JM
body: Let me get this straight. The official Atlassian response is to pollute your page's history just to discard changes you no longer want? Utterly disappointing.

Oh, and this is for *noncollaborative* editing. No one else has made any changes to the page. This is ridiculous.


author: philoye
body: [@JM](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/873060) This advice is out of date, in the intervening 18 months we have changed the interface. In the ... menu next to the Publish/Close buttons there is an option to do what you'd like:

For unpublished drafts there is an option to "Delete unpublished page".

For published pages, in the same ... menu you have an option to "Revert to published page".

I hope that helps.


author: Tom
body: [@philoye](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/257955) No, it doesn't help. I'm writing this in April 2019, and I came here because I DON'T find any option to discard unpublished changes.

I tried to make some formatting changes to my page, and it got messed up due to unintuitive formatting tools, so I closed the browser window and came back hoping that the changes would go away. There it says 'unpublished changes', and although the page displays correctly on view mode, if I went to edit more it shows the changed version.

There's no way now to discard those changes. I HAD to hit 'Update' and then restore the previous version from the page history. This is soooo stupid. If you auto-save my changes, there should be an easy way to revert as well.


author: Rodney Hughes
body: Maybe I am missing something ....

I just opened a page that I had been editing earlier this year but I never published/saved the page - i.e. I had just closed my browser.

When I opened the page in edit mode today this is what I get

![discard.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/50722iDA91586EA2593DC6/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "discard.PNG")


author: Rodney Hughes
body: That comment was for our Hosted version still on v 5.8.13

But I also have a Cloud instance

You can discard

if you have an unpublished draft of the page, the title line looks like this

![unpublished.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/50723iB10ADDA867FA6BBF/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "unpublished.PNG")

Now, down in the bottom right corner click the Ellipsis three dot icon

![revert.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/50724i9CD92090E4000489/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "revert.PNG")

Select the Revert option and this pop up appears

![revert 2.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/50725i4684AD3E72AB0AD4/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "revert 2.PNG")

I hope that helps


author: philoye
body: [@Tom](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2992801) as [@Rodney Hughes](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/853250) mentioned, in the ... menu in the editor there is an option to "Revert to last published version".

Are you on using Confluence Cloud (blue navigation bar is on the left) or Server (blue navigation is at the top)? If server, which version?


author: Rodney Hughes
body: My first post was our association Server based instance, the second with the "revert to last published version" was on my Cloud based site (with Blue menu bar) which is running version 1000.0.0-40d5a496fa9


author: philoye
body: [@Rodney Hughes](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/853250) Yep, got it. I was asking [@Tom](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2992801) :-)


author: Tom
body: Hi, Sorry for the delay in responding. I was on vacation.

My blue bar is on the top and the version is 'Confluence 6.6.5'

I see the option to discard only when I make the changes and hit the Close (picture below) button to close **right after** making those changes:![Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 1.21.12 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52012iB3E8DE3754EA2C82/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 1.21.12 PM.png")

When I hit the Close button, I see the following:

![Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 1.14.45 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52013i87387B6510BC47B7/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 1.14.45 PM.png")

This is the ONLY time I see that dialog box ever.

If I accidently close the browser window, my changes are auto-saved, and when I come back I see NO option to discard those changes. I only see the following on top of the page. Nothing happens if I click on it.

At the bottom, there's an Update button that will publish these changes, and a Close button that'll just exit the Edit mode and take you to the View mode. Like I said above, this Close button will ask if I want to discard changes, ONLY when I select that button right after making changes. If you close the browser window and come back, it won't provide that option.

![Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 1.25.02 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52014i6A064326435538EB/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-04-18 at 1.25.02 PM.png")

So essentially, if you miss discarding your changes the first time, you miss it for ever (at least in this version that I'm using).


author: Rodney Hughes
body: If you have a page showing that "UNPUBLISHED CHANGES" message at the top, what happens when you are in Edit mode and you go to the bottom right corner of the page and click the Ellipsis three dot icon as per the image in my last post ?


author: Rodney Hughes
body: [@Tom](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2992801) have you found the discard option via the Ellipsis at the bottom yet as per my previous post


author: Tom
body: [@Rodney](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/966823), I don't see those ellipsis at the bottom right corner of the page when I go in edit mode.

Here's what I see on top of the page in View mode:

![Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.38.47 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52417i13EED24DCF7DF467/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.38.47 PM.png")

++When I go into Edit mode, the following is what I see on the top of the page:++

![Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.40.13 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52418iBAC7F29ACFA49C28/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.40.13 PM.png")

++and here's what I see on the bottom of the page:++

![Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.39.18 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52419i6D58FFD80D9C4DFA/image-dimensions/843x92?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.39.18 PM.png")

There is NO ellipsis ++anywhere++ on the bottom of that page when I go in Edit mode. Hope this helps.


author: Tom
body: Btw, the three ellipses on top of the page **in View mode**, shows these options when expanded (no discard option there either):

![Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.48.57 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52420iB348620CDDD58419/image-dimensions/135x371?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 2.48.57 PM.png")


author: Rodney Hughes
body: Definitely different to my top and bottom screen - notably \<\<Update\>\> is \<\<Publish\>\> on my screen.

[@philoye](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/257955) any suggestion?

What version of Confluence Cloud do you have? Click the question mark icon bottom left of side bar

I have Confluence 1000.0.0-6016cf1a698

![top and bottom.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52422iD817523AE15065B8/image-dimensions/512x187?v=v2 "top and bottom.PNG")


author: Tom
body: I don't see question mark on the bottom left of my page/side bar. Here's what I see there:

![Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 3.47.41 PM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/52423i37CDD68CFBAC81CD/image-dimensions/348x85?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 3.47.41 PM.png")

There's a ? on the right top, which gives out this version number:

License Information for Confluence {#toc-hId--1439396774}
---------------------------------------------------------

### Confluence 6.6.5 {#toc-hId--748835300}


author: Daniel Roberts
body: I figured out how to discard Unpublished Changes in Confluence Server v6.6.13 which doesn't have the feature mentioned about for Confluence Cloud.

Go into Edit, make *ANOTHER* change, and then click Close. You'll then be given the option to discard all changes.


author: Rodney Hughes
body: Just close the editing window without saving

that returns you to view mode

next time you open it in edit mode it will notify you there is a draft and whether you want to resume editing or discard

comments: author: David
body: I'm running Confluence Cloud and the only buttons are Update (publish) and Save \& Close (draft). There is no simple close, which just returns to view mode, without saving.


author: philoye
body: Hi David, you are correct, the button reads "Save and close", which has the described behaviour: it preserves the draft and returns to view mode without updating the epage.


author: JM
body: Not getting a prompt anymore.


author: Tom
body: [@philoye](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/257955) Why on earth this has to be so complex? I only see three options now: preview, update, close. If you just add another one: 'Close without Saving' that should easily solve this. Also provide an option to discard changes for those who close the window without choosing any of these options, when the return.


author: philoye
body: [@Tom](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2992801) You appear to be on an older version of our Server product. As mentioned above, Cloud no longer has the buttons you mentioned. You might want to check our documentation, here's is a [page about drafts in Server](https://confluence.atlassian.com/conf61/collaborative-editing-877187551.html).


author: Stephen French
body: Man this is complicated.  

I also would like to discard my draft. I cannot figure out how to do it.  

Jira engineers, please help!

comments: author: Rodney Hughes
body: Have you checked out Emily Chan's instructions above dated 12th May 2019 ?


author: Shanta Nathwani
body: I've read through all of the above. I'm running the cloud version.

I've made some changes that I want to discard.

I hit close and it says "Unpublished Changes" at the top of the page. The last update to the page was May 02, 2018.

I go to edit the page. I click on "Revert to last Published Page". The version it warns me about is the one that was published on March 27, 2018, not May 2, 2018 as I expect.

So, if I follow the instructions above, to clarify:

1. Publish my changes
2. Go in and edit the page and revert to the previously published page
3. I *expect* that the page should go back to the May 2, 2018 draft.

Before I proceed with this, because I don't want to lose the changes that the person made for the May 2, 2018 one, are we sure that if I follow this methodology, that after reverting my changes, this should return to the May 2, 2018 one, not the March 27, 2018 version?

Have I confused you enough yet?

comments: author: Rodney Hughes
body: I have just tested what I think you are describing

A page with only one version dated 2014 - View mode is "clear"

I edited the page and closed without Publishing

View mode now shows "Unpublished changes" and of course the unpublished changes are not showing. Ellipsis Page History still shows only one version.

Now back in Edit mode I Publish the changes, Page History now shows two versions

If I Restore the previous version, View mode now shows the original 2014 version and Page History now has 3 versions, the latest showing with comment "Reverted from v1"

Then I decided to Restore version 2 - the one with the published changes I made today. Page History now shows 4 versions with the latest showing as "Reverted from v2"


author: Emily Chan
body: Hi everyone\~

I thought it would be helpful to consolidate the answers to this question, and to provide additional clarification to the answers that had been given.

![Screen Shot 2019-05-13 at 1.52.41 pm.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/54276i02D842CD48A33B9C/image-dimensions/247x115?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2019-05-13 at 1.52.41 pm.png")

As of Confluence Server 6.15, the way to discard your drafts without saving is to click on the triple ellipsis ( "..." ) at the bottom right of the editor (next to the "Publish" and "Close" buttons).

* if the page has never been published, click the "Delete unpublished page" option
* if the page has already been published at least once before, the option "Revert to last published version" appears instead. Click that.

[Things to note:](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/collaborative-editing-858771779.html)

* if other people had also made unpublished changes on the same draft, then discarding the draft means that you will be discarding EVERYONE'S unpublished changes in the draft
  * you are informed who (other than yourself) had made unpublished changes int he draft, before you confirm to discard the draft
  * currently there is no way to tell exactly which edits were made by whom
* changes in drafts aren't versioned (which means you can't see which particular edits were made at which point in time since the page was last published)

As of Confluence Cloud 1000.0.0-98902f4c0cc, the user experience is the same as Confluence Server 6.15.

![Screen Shot 2019-05-13 at 1.53.38 pm.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/54277iC857EE6C14674519/image-dimensions/515x98?v=v2 "Screen Shot 2019-05-13 at 1.53.38 pm.png")

[@Tom](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2992801) , the user experience is different for Confluence Server 6.6.5.

As you've said, when you've made any changes and click close, a dialog shows up and asks you whether you want to (1) keep the draft or (2) discard all changes (or everyone's changes, in the case of collaborative editing).

If you had closed the browser window, the system assumes you had chosen to keep the draft.

When the draft has been kept, and you yourself have not made any changes, the dialog will not appear when you close the editor.

If there has been changes to the draft, but none of these changes were made by you, then the dialog will not appear when you close the editor.

If you had made any changes to the draft (even a single extra space, a new line, or deleting and rewriting any word in the page), then the dialog will appear again.


Tags: cloud

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