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Review and save
Every change waits in one panel until you press Save changes.
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Nothing changes in Confluence until you press Save changes. Every sort, drag and move waits in the Unsaved changes panel beside the list, which shows exactly what saving will do. Check it first: as in Confluence itself, a save can’t be undone.
Keep the tab open while it saves. The save runs only while your tab stays open. Close it and the save stops; pages already moved stay moved. See Keep the tab open.
The Unsaved changes panel
The panel appears beside the list with your first change. At the top, a summary counts the page moves the save will make — 8 page moves. Saving can’t be undone. — one for each page going to a new parent, and one for each page that has to change place to reach a new order. Pages already where they belong aren’t counted, and aren’t moved. If you have also sorted every level below a page, the summary reads n page moves, plus every level below. Saving can’t be undone.; if that is the only change, Sorting every level below. Saving can’t be undone.
Below the summary is one line per change. Click a line to open the list of its pages.
| The line reads | Under it | Opened, it lists |
|---|---|---|
| 3 pages move into Old policies in Archive (the space is named only when it isn’t this one) | Where the pages come from (From Meeting notes, or From 2 parents), where they land (at the top, at the bottom or placed where you put them), any renames (1 renamed first (title taken there)), and their child pages move with them | The pages in the order they will land, with renamed to “…” beside a renamed page, and where each page comes from when they come from several parents |
| 8 pages change place under Policies | The other pages keep their places | Each page that moves, in its new order, with its old and new position: 3 → 1 |
| Every level below Projects is sorted A to Z | How many pages that moves is worked out while saving | Nothing: those pages are read and sorted only while saving |
A move that left pages behind says so on its line — 1 left out (too big to move), (title already used there), (can’t go inside itself), or (open to see why) when the reasons differ — and opening it names each page with its reason. Under the lines, the panel repeats what your last action did, such as Sorted A to Z., along with any note the app has for you.
Cancel a move, or discard everything
- The × on a move’s line (Cancel this move) cancels that move alone. Its pages go back to the places they had.
- A change of place has no ×. Drag the pages back where they were — once nothing differs, the line goes — or discard. An every-level-below sort has no × either.
- Discard throws away every unsaved change, under every parent, at once and without asking.
Leaving asks first. With unsaved changes, Close in the ••• dialog and ← Choose another space on the Apps page both stop with Leave without saving? Your unsaved changes will be lost. and a choice of Stay or Leave without saving. Reloading or closing the tab may bring up your browser’s own warning, but browsers can skip it for an app shown inside Confluence, so don’t count on it.
Changes across several parents
Unsaved changes cover every parent you open in a session, not only the one on screen. Open another parent — by clicking a page’s title, a name in the breadcrumb, or a page in the page tree — and your changes come with you. The panel goes on listing all of them, and one Save changes saves the lot. Ticks are the one thing that doesn’t carry over.
That is how you place moved pages exactly: drop them inside a page, open it, find them at the bottom marked Moving in, and drag them into place. Their move then reads placed where you put them.
Three marks show what is waiting:
- ▲n or ▼n on a row — how many places that page moves up or down.
- Moving in on a row — a page arriving from another parent.
- +n beside an item in the page tree — pages waiting to move into it when you save.
If a list you have rearranged changes in Confluence while you work — someone else moves or adds a page there, say — the app notices when you open it again and shows the banner described under Saving.
How much one save can do
- 1,000 page moves. More than 1,000 pages moving to new parents switches Save changes off, with That’s n pages moving to new parents. One save can move up to 1,000: cancel some with × and move them in a second save. Rearranging past 1,000 doesn’t block the save: the summary adds This save makes the first 1,000; sort again afterwards to finish, and the save makes the first 1,000 moves.
- 100 parents. Each place pages are moving to (First and Last under one page count as two), each parent with a new order, and each every-level-below sort counts as one. Past 100, pressing Save changes saves nothing and the panel says This save changes n parents; one save can change up to 100. Save some of the changes first, then the rest.
- 500 parents for each every-level-below sort; see Results.
Every ceiling in one place: Limits.
Saving
Press Save changes. The panel turns to Saving and first reads Checking the current order…: each list you opened that your changes touch is read again from Confluence and compared with how it looked when you first opened it.
If any of them has changed, nothing is saved. Someone may have added, moved, sorted or deleted pages there since you opened it. A banner above the list says These pages changed since you opened them, so nothing was saved. Load the latest order, beside it, clears your unsaved changes and reloads the list from Confluence; make your changes again on the fresh order.
Then the pages move, in this order: moves to new parents first, then each parent’s new order, then any every-level-below sorts. The panel names the step under way, with a progress bar whenever there is a count:
| The panel reads | What is happening |
|---|---|
| Renaming pages… n of m | Pages whose title is taken in the space they are going to get their new title, just before they move. |
| Moving pages to Old policies… n of m | Pages going to a new parent, one destination after another. |
| Moving pages… n of m | One parent being put in its new order, a page at a time. |
| Moving pages… n moved | Several parents being put in order, up to three at once, with a running count. |
| Sorting the pages under “page”… | An every-level-below sort, working down the branch and naming each page whose child pages it is sorting. Before it reaches one, the panel reads Sorting every level below… |
After putting a parent in order, the app reads it back from Confluence and fixes anything that landed out of place, once. Pages that can’t move keep their places, and the rest are arranged around them.
The app acts as you throughout, so Confluence’s own permissions decide every move: a page Confluence won’t let you move is skipped and reported, and the rest of the save carries on.
Keep the tab open
Below the progress, the panel says Moving a lot of pages can take a few minutes. Keep this tab open until it’s done; closing it stops the save. The app stores nothing and runs no background jobs, so your tab drives the save: the app works in stretches of about ten seconds, and the tab asks for the next one until the job is done. Close the tab and nothing asks for the next stretch: the save stops, and pages already moved stay moved. While it runs you can’t edit, open another parent, or close the ••• dialog.
A busy Confluence usually slows a save rather than ending it. When Confluence says it is busy, the app waits and tries the move again, several times; a page it still can’t move is reported with the others that couldn’t be moved. A stretch that fails outright is tried twice more, and if three stretches in a row get nowhere, the save stops with Confluence is responding too slowly, so the save stopped.
Results
When the save finishes, the list and the page tree are read again from Confluence, so what you see is the real order, and the marks clear. The panel heading reads Saved, or Note when some pages couldn’t be moved. Either way the text starts with the count — 8 pages moved. — and may go on with any of these:
| The panel adds | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 2 pages couldn’t be moved: “Benefits”, “Travel”. They may be restricted, or you may not have permission. | Confluence turned those pages down for you — usually a page restriction, or a space where you can’t move pages. A page Confluence stayed too busy to move gets this line too. Everything else was saved. | Ask a space admin to lift the restriction or give you the permission (see the Admin guide), or ask someone who can move those pages to do it. If nothing stops you moving them, sort or drag again and save. |
| 1 page couldn’t be moved: “Projects”. Confluence can’t move a page with more than 1,000 pages beneath it, not even with its own Move. Move some of its child pages out first. | More than 1,000 pages sit beneath the page, so Confluence refused to move it. | Move some of its child pages under another parent, then try again. |
| 1 page couldn’t be moved: “Weekly sync”. followed by Confluence’s own reason | Confluence refused with a reason of its own, such as a title that is now taken in the other space. For a page being renamed, the reason can start Couldn’t rename it to “…”. or It was renamed to “…” but not moved. | Move it again with Move to… and choose Rename and move, or rename it in Confluence first. A page that was renamed but not moved keeps its new title. |
| That was the first 1,000 moves: about n more are still to do. Sort again and save to finish. | Your changes needed more than one save’s 1,000 moves. | Sort or drag again, and save. Only the pages still out of place move. |
| Stopped after 500 parents; open a page further down and sort from there for the rest. | An every-level-below sort reached 500 parents. | Open a page deeper in that branch and sort every level below it. |
A failure line names up to three pages, then and n more, and gives one reason for all of them: the 1,000-beneath reason if it applies to any of them, otherwise Confluence’s own reason if it gave one, otherwise the restriction reason.
When the save stops part way
If the save stops before it is done, the panel says Not saved., gives the reason and, when some pages had already moved, ends n pages moved before it stopped; the list shows the order now. Your unsaved changes stay in the panel. The reasons you may see include:
- You don’t have permission to do that here.
- That page no longer exists, or you can no longer see it.
- Confluence is busy. Wait a minute and try again.
- Confluence is responding too slowly, so the save stopped.
After a partial save
A save isn’t all or nothing: pages that moved stay moved, whether some pages failed, the save stopped, or the tab was closed. To finish the job:
- See where things stand. If the banner These pages changed since you opened them, so nothing was saved. is showing, or appears when you press Save changes again, press Load the latest order: it drops what is left of your unsaved changes and shows every page where it is now. If you closed the tab, open Page Order again on the same parent.
- Deal with what failed, using the table above.
- Sort or drag again, and save. The app plans from the order Confluence has now, so only the pages still out of place move. Any move to a new parent that didn’t happen needs making again.
There is no undo, as in Confluence itself. To reverse a save, move the pages back and save again.
Still stuck? See Help and support.