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Guide · Confluence Cloud

How to find inactive users in Confluence Cloud

For Confluence Cloud admins who want to know which licensed users no longer use Confluence. You'll use Atlassian's own tools, see what they can and can't tell you about people who only read, and free seats without losing anyone's pages.

Updated 13 October 2026 · 7 min read

Step 1

Export your users with their last-seen dates

Every user with Confluence access counts toward your bill, used or not. Atlassian's cloud licensing FAQ says users count once product access is granted.

Start with the user export. You need the organization admin role.

  1. Go to admin.atlassian.com and select your organization.
  2. Select Directory → Users. If your Users page has a Site filter, you're on the original user management experience: open your site first, then Users.
  3. Select Export users.
  4. Choose all users in your organization, then Only active users.
  5. Tick App access, so the file has a role column for each app.
  6. Select Export users. Atlassian emails you a link to the CSV file.

Two columns matter:

  • Role - Confluence - [your site] shows None, Guest, User or Admin. User or Admin is a paid seat. Guests aren't billed.
  • Last seen in Confluence - [your site] is the date the person last viewed Confluence on that site for at least 2 seconds. Blank means no date on record.

Filter the role column to User and Admin and sort by last seen, oldest first. A blank date, or one older than six months, suggests the person doesn't even open Confluence. Those are the easy cases.

A user's page in Directory → Users also shows a last active date, but it covers every app on the site and can lag by up to 24 hours.

Know the limits

What the last-seen date can't tell you

In Confluence, reading is real use. Someone who checks the runbook every week needs a seat even if they never write a word. So you're sorting people into three groups:

  • Contributors, who create, edit and comment.
  • Readers, who view pages but don't write.
  • People who do neither. These are the seats to free.

The export can't separate the first two. Last seen only means someone viewed a page for 2 seconds, so a single visit from a notification email counts the same as daily reading. Other gaps:

  • Integration accounts look idle. Accounts that only use the API don't view pages, so they can show no date while working every day. Leave them out.
  • Site analytics need Premium. Confluence's Analytics app, with per-user counts, is only on Premium and Enterprise.
  • No automation. Atlassian has no setting that removes access after a period of no activity. A suggestion for it, AX-1169, has been open since 2019.

On Atlassian Guard Premium or an Enterprise plan, the organization audit log can also record in-app activity, such as viewing or creating a Confluence page.

Step 2

Find out who contributes

On Premium or Enterprise, use site analytics:

  1. Open the Apps menu in the sidebar and select Analytics.
  2. Go to the Users tab and pick a date range, such as the last six months.
  3. Each user is shown with how much they created, updated, commented on, searched and viewed. Select Export as CSV to work with it in a spreadsheet.

Atlassian's docs don't say whether people with no activity at all appear in this list, so compare it with your export. Licensed users missing from analytics, or with nothing in any column, are strong candidates.

On Standard, there's no per-user report, but search works one person at a time:

  1. Click the search bar and select Advanced search.
  2. Add the person in the Contributors filter. It finds content they created, edited or commented on.
  3. Set Last modified to your cut-off, such as the last six months.

No results means they changed nothing in that period. A result doesn't prove the reverse: it may be a page they edited long ago that someone else changed recently, so check the page history.

Analytics and search only cover content you can see. And it's one search per person: fine for twenty names, slow for five hundred.

Step 3

Free the seat, keep the pages

For most clean-ups, take away Confluence access and nothing else (Atlassian's steps):

  1. In Atlassian Administration, go to Directory → Users and open the user.
  2. On the Apps tab, select ••• next to Confluence, then Remove access.

This takes the person out of every group that gives Confluence access. Their pages, blog posts and comments stay where they are, and they keep their account and other apps. Give access back if they need it later. Remove the organization admin role first if they have it, and if your groups sync from an identity provider, make the change there.

Suspending access, removing the user, deactivating the account and deleting it are bigger steps that affect every app. Deactivating and deleting only work for managed accounts on a verified domain, and deletion is permanent after 14 days. Keep those for people who have left.

Be careful with readers. Confluence guests are free (up to 5 per paid user), but they're meant for people outside your organization, and Atlassian doesn't let you convert current or former paid users to guests. Anonymous access to a space only suits content anyone may read without signing in.

Timing matters for the saving. Under maximum quantity billing, monthly plans are billed on the highest number of users in the period, so removing someone mid-month doesn't lower that month's bill. The lower count carries into the next cycle. Annual plans pay for a user tier until renewal, so clean up before you renew.

To estimate what idle seats cost, try our licence waste calculator. It uses Atlassian's October 2026 monthly list prices: Confluence at $5.42 per user on Standard and $10.44 on Premium.

License Audit inside Confluence administration, with the audit period and Run audit button.
License Audit for ConfluenceConfluence Cloud · Atlassian Forge

The shortcut: License Audit for Confluence

On Standard, step 2 is one search per person. On Premium, it's two files to compare. License Audit for Confluence lists every licensed user who contributed nothing in the period you pick.

  • Nothing to set up. No API key or token. Pick 30, 60, 90, 180 or 365 days and select Run audit.
  • What counts. Creating or editing a page or blog post (including whiteboards and databases), posting or editing a comment, or uploading a file or a new version of one.
  • Checked in full. A quick scan clears most people. Everyone else is checked against all content, including the edit history of pages other people changed later, so someone else's edit can't hide a user's own.
  • Atlassian's count. The licensed-user total matches Users for Confluence in Atlassian Administration. Apps, deactivated accounts and guests are left out.
  • The list. Each inactive user with their email (where their profile allows) and their last contribution: 90 to 180 days, 180 to 365 days, or over a year or never. Search, filter, and export to CSV or Excel. Enter your seat price to see the yearly cost.
  • Read-only. No write permission, so it can't remove anyone or change a page. It runs on Atlassian Forge, and nothing leaves Atlassian.

It can't spot readers. Confluence doesn't let apps see page views, so people who only read will be on the list. Treat it as the shortlist, then check each name's last-seen date in Atlassian Administration before you free a seat.

Free 30-day trial, then billed per user per month on your Atlassian invoice. The price is on the Marketplace listing. If you also run Jira, License Audit for Jira does the same for Jira seats.

Get it on the Atlassian Marketplace See how it works

FAQ

Common questions

How do I see when a Confluence user was last active?

Export users from Atlassian Administration (Directory, then Users, then Export users) with App access ticked, and read the Last seen in Confluence column. The date on a user's page in Directory covers all apps on the site and can lag by up to 24 hours.

Can I see who viewed a Confluence page?

For one page, yes: on Standard, Premium and Enterprise, select the view count at the top of the page to see its viewers. A per-user report across the whole site is in Confluence Analytics, which needs Premium or Enterprise.

Do read-only users need a Confluence licence?

Yes, if they sign in to read content that isn't open to anonymous users. Guests are free but meant for people outside your organization, and you can't convert current or former paid users to guests.

Do inactive users count toward Confluence billing?

Yes. Atlassian bills for every user with Confluence access, whether or not they use it. They stop counting when you remove their Confluence access, suspend or remove them, or deactivate the account.

Does removing Confluence access delete a user's pages?

No. Their pages, blog posts, comments and history stay in place with their name on them, and they keep their Atlassian account. You can give access back at any time.

How do I remove inactive users from Confluence in bulk?

Take them out of every group that gives Confluence access (Directory, then Groups, in Atlassian Administration), or script it with Atlassian's APIs. This is reversible. Deleting accounts is not.