Incoming Links — documentation
What the app does, how the index is built, what it stores, and the one thing it cannot promise you. Written against version 2.2.0.
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What it is for
Confluence tells you where a page goes. It will not tell you what points back at it — there is no "what links here" view, and the request for one has been open with Atlassian since 2014.
This app builds the missing half: a reverse index of your wiki's internal links. Two things use it. A macro lists every page linking to the page you are reading, across every space. A Link Report lists every page in a space that nothing links to at all.
The macro
Edit a page, insert Incoming Links, publish. The macro shows a heading, a count, and one line per linking page, each a link, with the space shown beside it.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Heading | Pages that link here | The text shown above the list. Any wording you like. |
| Maximum links to show | 25 | How many rows to display. Accepts 1 to 200; anything outside that is clamped. If there are more, the macro says how many it is showing out of the total. |
| Show which space each page is in | Yes | Hides the space tag beside each result when set to No. Useful on a single-space wiki. |
How the index is built
Two mechanisms, and understanding the difference explains almost every question people ask.
1. Pages index themselves as they are saved
When a page is created, updated or restored, the app reads that page's body, extracts the links it contains, and records them. This happens in the background, with no user present. It is why a link you just added takes effect when the linking page is saved — not when the page you are looking at is reloaded.
Re-indexing a page replaces its whole set of recorded links rather than adding to them, so a link you remove actually disappears.
2. Back-filling what was written before you installed
Pages written before installation are not in the index. Click Index this space in the macro and the app walks the space once, reading every page and recording its links. After the first time the button reads Re-index this space.
The walk happens a chunk at a time, driven from your browser, so the size of the space does not matter — a very large space is simply more chunks. Leave the page open while it runs; progress is shown as pages read and links recorded. You only need to do this once per space.
As of version 2.2.0, a scan you start reads Confluence with your own permissions, not the app's. A back-fill can only reach pages you are already able to open. The background save-time indexer still runs as the app, because nobody is signed in at the moment a page is saved.
The Link Report
Under Apps in the Confluence menu. Choose a space, click Find pages nothing links to, and the report lists every page in that space with no recorded inbound link, 25 to a page.
If the space has never been indexed, the report says so prominently rather than letting you believe every older page is an orphan. Index the space first, or the answer is meaningless.
It is worth running even when you are not deleting anything. A page nothing links to is usually a page nobody is reading.
Permissions and what the app can do
The app holds no write permission of any kind. There is no scope in its manifest that would let it create, edit or delete anything in your Confluence. Its complete set is:
read:page:confluenceread:space:confluenceread:user:confluenceread:content.metadata:confluencestorage:app— its own index, inside Forge
Every result is checked against the reader's own Confluence permissions before it is displayed. Someone who cannot open a restricted page is not told that it exists; everyone who can, still sees it. Two people on the same page can correctly see different lists.
The app carries Atlassian's Runs on Atlassian designation: data stays inside Atlassian's own Forge platform, in your site's region, and the app makes no outbound network calls. There is no server of ours for your content to travel to, because there is no server of ours.
What is stored
For each link: which page links to which, the linking page's title and space key, and a timestamp. Page contents are never stored. Bodies are read to find links and then discarded.
Uninstalling from Manage apps deletes the stored index.
Limits worth knowing before you rely on it
An empty result means "nothing found in the index", not "nothing links here". If the space was never back-filled, or a linking page has not been saved since installation, a real link can be missing. Treat an empty result as a strong signal before deleting something — not as a guarantee.
- Page bodies only. Links in comments and inside attachments are not indexed.
- Internal links. The index is about pages in your Confluence site linking to each other.
- Deleted and renamed pages. A deleted page drops off the list by itself; a renamed page shows its new title.
- A failed lookup never empties your index. If Confluence returns an error or rate-limits a check, the app keeps what it recorded rather than treating the failure as "this page is gone".
Pricing
| Confluence users | Price per user / month |
|---|---|
| 1 – 10 | Free |
| 11 – 100 | $1.20 |
| 101 – 250 | $0.90 |
| 251 – 1000 | $0.55 |
| 1001+ | $0.35 |
Annual billing is ten months for twelve, applied automatically by Atlassian. Billing is handled entirely by Atlassian; we never see a card.
Getting help
Email [email protected]. Within five working days; within 24 hours for anything Atlassian classifies as critical. Including your Confluence site address and the page where the problem appears helps a great deal.