This document is for administrators who wish to manage plugins installed in their Confluence server, or install new plugins. Confluence plugins were introduced in Confluence 1.3. For an overview of how plugins work in Confluence, read the Confluence Plugin Guide.

(info) You need to have System Administrator permissions in order to install and configure plugins.

Looking for existing plugins? See the existing plugins and extensions written by the community in the Confluence Extensions space.

Confluence versions 2.0 and later support the Plugin Repository, which provides an alternative way to install plugins directly from the the plugin libraries.

Plugins are very powerful: they can change the behaviour of almost any part of the Confluence server. This makes it very important that you trust a plugin before you install it. Always be aware of where (and who) a plugin comes from.

Installing a Plugin Manually

Plugins are distributed as a jar file. To install a plugin,

  1. In the 'Administration' section of Confluence, click the Plugins link.
  2. Use the 'Choose file' button to find the plugin jar you wish to install on your harddrive and select it.
  3. Click 'upload'.
  4. The plugin will be uploaded from your machine to Confluence, and will be automatically installed
  5. Check the Plugin Administration screen to ensure if the plugin is available.
  6. Enable the plugin if necessary. (Some plugins will be enabled by default when they are installed. Others will have to be manually enabled from the Plugin Administration screen.)

Enabling and Disabling Plugins

Plugins (and their constitutent plugin modules) may be enabled and disabled by the site administrator. You can do this from the Plugins section of the global administration screen. All plugins installed in the Confluence server are listed on the left hand side. To enable or disable a plugin (or its modules) click on the plugin name.
On the right-hand side, a description of the plugin is shown, including its component plugin modules.
You can enable or disable the whole plugin:

Or each module individually:

Disabling a plugin module may cause other modules in the same plugin to cease to function correctly. When in doubt, make sure you disable or enable the entire plugin.