Deprecating infrequently used macros in Confluence Cloud

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community,

We are deprecating a set of macros that are infrequently used by customers. Here’s how the deprecation will look:

On March 25, 2025 (now)

Ending support for deprecated macros

• We will no longer fix bugs for these deprecated macros, unless they are critical problems.

• Deprecated macros will now have “(Deprecated)” next to their names so users are aware that they are deprecated. Their descriptions will also call out their deprecation and link to deprecation documentation. (Note that this may take some time to start appearing on your site).

• For 6 months, existing instances of deprecated macros will remain functional in Confluence, and new instances can still be added to content.

On September 25, 2025 (6 months from now)

Removing deprecated macros from product

• We will remove the deprecated macros from Confluence Cloud.

• Users will no longer be able to add deprecated macros to content in Confluence Cloud.

• Existing instances of these macros will be replaced with a message that indicates the macro is no longer available with a link to deprecation documentation.

Deprecated macros

To better understand how these macros may be used in your site, you can use the Macro Usage feature in Confluence Administration. 

Deprecated macro	Alternative option
Chart	To create charts in Confluence, we recommend creating a table then using the “Insert chart” option for a better experience.
Contributors Summary	Use the Contributors macro. Note that you will not be able to get the same exact information with the Contributors macro.
Gallery	To organize images on a page in a dynamic gallery, we recommend using a Confluence database. Create a database, add a "Media and files" field column, and insert the images you want to organize. Then, choose a Card or Board layout for your database and pick your image field for the cover image option. To embed this on a page, simply copy a link to the database and paste it into the page. You can also use a layout, table, or cards macro to organize images.
Google Drive (Legacy Editor only)	Paste a link to a google drive file and it will automatically become a smart link that you can display as an embed.
Page Index	Use a macro like Insert Confluence list, Child pages or Content Report Table.
Powerpoint, Excel, and Word macros	Upload the file directly to Confluence content or paste a OneDrive smart link to embed files in Confluence.
Recently Updated Dashboard	Use the Recent updates macro
Related Labels	Click on a page label to see a list of related labels
Spaces List	Use advanced search and filter by “Type: Spaces.” Then, copy and paste the link in your URL bar into Confluence content. Note that this does not support the same filters as Spaces List. You can also visit the space directory.
Span	No alternative at this time.
User List	To view groups, go to Atlassian Administration > User management > Groups. To view group space permissions, go to Confluence administration > Settings > Security > Space permissions. Alternatively, you can browse the Atlassian marketplace for other solutions.

You can also find this these macros & others that have been removed in the past in our Confluence Support knowledge base article: Learn which macros are being removed.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

Glad to see that I don't use any of the macros on this list. 👍

[Michael Bachmann]

I had just prepared and was supposed to present our new "Event Gallery" for our events next week (using the Gallery and Cards macros, looks really neat). Seems like I have to scrap that now...

The suggested alternative is ridiculously cumbersome.

This will just strenghten the calls to move to Sharepoint, and admittedly I have no counter argument anymore if even such simple things aren't possible anymore.

[David Michelson]

@michael Thank you for your feedback. Just to clarify - we are NOT planning on deprecating the new "Cards" macro or "Carousel" macro. We are deprecating the very old and infrequently used "Gallery" macro.

[Michael Bachmann]

I'm aware of that, my comment was specifically aimed at the Gallery macro, I just mentioned the Cards macro as it was the new addition that made it look much better. Sorry if that was unclear.

With the removal of the Gallery macro we have no place within Confluence to put photos (20-100) of our in-house events in any meaningful way. Inserting and organizing them manually, as suggested in your article, is simply in no way feasible.

It is sad to see that such smaller features are being removed without any replacement and it's definitely hindering us to use Confluence as an intranet.

[David Michelson]

@michael Another alternative we can suggest for the Gallery macro that allows for more dynamic filtering (and less manual sorting) would be using a Confluence database! You can leverage a "Media and files" field column to add images to the database. Then, you can leverage the Card or Board layout options to make it look like a compelling gallery. You can easily embed this on any Confluence page by just copy-pasting the link to the database right into the page.

You can learn more about database layouts here: Layouts and options.

[Michael Bachmann]

I really appreciate your effort (and creativity), but this is just in no way feasible for a normal user.

A user would need to create a separate database, setup the columns, insert the images one by one into each row of the database (imagine this for 50+ photos) to finally embedd the database into your actual page. Non-technical people in HR or Marketing are certainly not going to put up with this.

Sadly this is just yet another use case that we will have to move to Sharepoint.

[Ken Poulton]

Why the eagerness to slash and burn?  All of our content is internal documentation that just needs to stay there and NOT GET BROKEN.

Our instance has 85 uses of Gallery.  Users are not going to learn deal with a database to replace this.  All those pages will just be broken, and become permanent black eyes for Confluence.

Gallery is the only macro on this list that we use a lot, but this eagerness to break things is an ongoing problem with Confluence.

[Tami Dubi]

Hi @David Michelson ,
We need the User list, we are using it frequently as it shows users within a permission group. 
Currently only the site admin can see the users that are included in a permission group. If we want to know if someone is in the group (before opening a ticket to the site admin) we used to run this macro.
the mention option doesn't show those permission groups but shows team groups (which is useless)

[Elvar Böðvarsson]

The user list macro should not be deprecated, but instead be enhanced. Already it is the only plugin that can list members of a group which is then used all over the place in the Atlassian products. Something I do not think that the Teams feature can do so suggesting it as a replacement is not the appropriate alternative option.

Groups are used for example in permission schemes, notification schemes, issue security schemes.

If you go further and sync specific groups through SAML, for example with Azure, a company could have various groups there that do not relate to the Teams functionality. The User List macro can be used to get an up to date group membership statuses that allows everyone to do continuous reviews of those group memberships as it is part of the documentation for the group context.

To expand on the enhancements

• Admins should be able to filter out specific groups that should not be accessible with the macro
• The output should be customizable. Allow users to enable showing the avatar and specific metadata fields tied to the user.

[Michael Bachmann]

I agree in regards to the user list macro, simply "mentioning" a team, as suggested in this article, is something completely different than listing the users of a specific group.

We frequently use the user list macro on space homepages to list the members of groups (i.e. departments) that are responsible for that space.

[David Michelson]

Thank you all for your feedback on the suggested alternative for the User List macro. We have updated our recommendation based on your feedback!

To view groups, go to Atlassian Administration > User management > Groups. To view group space permissions, go to Confluence administration > Settings > Security > Space permissions. Alternatively, you can browse the Atlassian marketplace for other solutions.

[Tami Dubi]

Hi,

As I explained before the macro was used by non admins. That's the whole point.

You are canceling a feture without understanding how the users used it. 

As for the market place option:

I can't believe that this is actually Atlassian answer.  You had an integral feture in your software that for some reason you decided to depricate and tou ate referring me to a third party vendor that would probably cost more money?

This is one of the worst customer experience I've encountered. 

[Merrill Oates DA Admin_Own]

I sincerely hope that Atlassian is not serious about actually eliminating the UserList macro!

For more than 10 years we have implemented this as the best way for visitors to a Space to know who is in the Group that is managing the Space content.  We don't need a generic Team name, we need to show the list of individuals who are in the Group responsible for content.

We always use this feature in combination with the Group that is assigned to manage the Space – and it is the ONLY way for another user (who is not a Site Admin) to know exactly who is in that Group.

To propose that the Site Admin who is managing all of the users is the only individual who can have access to the list of users who are in a designated group assigned to manage a Space borders on the ridiculous.  This undermines one of the key Collaboration features of Confluence that helps users know who-is-who and who is on which teams.

This feature should really be improved and expanded on, not deprecated.  In fact, I would suggest that if this is "infrequently used" it is because many users haven't been aware of its true functionality, or that its current implementation hasn't made it as functional as it could be.

PLEASE take this back up to the management team for reconsideration.

[Elvar Böðvarsson]

Fully agree with all the comments on the User List Macro.

If the official stance Atlassaian has on this is to remove a very useful feature and point customers to the marketplace then so be it. But at minimum point to some plugins that provide the same solution for the use case.

[David Michelson]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for your continued feedback on deprecating infrequently used macros in Confluence Cloud.

We are actively tracking your feedback in this thread and through other channels, and will make sure we keep it under consideration as we move forward.

[Dana Bar Lavie Jones]

If you chose to deprecate the User list macro, the users do not have any way of seeing who is in which user group, in big companies that re-organize frequently, this is not ideal. 
if you do chose to deprecate this- the teams function could replace it only if it is also connected the user groups. otherwise it's just another step that we as admins must take care of. 

[Valerie Knapp]

Echoing what @Dana Bar Lavie Jones wrote, I have a customer that uses the user list macro in every single space for exactly this purpose. It's the only way to show project admins who is working in their projects, which have the permissions managed by user groups and roles. I was really shocked to see this macro is going to be deprecated and now I can see that it's quite a long list of things to be removed. Are there new macros coming to replace these or what is the situation?

[Jens Müntinga]

Removing the User List macro would really be a very incomprehensible decision.

This macro is the only way to show users the members of a specific group and this information is very important in many places.

• I am talking about real “groups”, i.e. groups that are created and managed by an admin and in most cases are also synchronized via an identity provider.
• I am not talking about “teams”. The fact that every user can create their own teams in Atlassian is a disaster in itself, but that's another topic.

In order to be able to display the members of a managed group without the User List macro,

• I now have to create a team in addition to the managed group.
• If I then create this team and link the group members via @-Mentioning on a Confluence page, all group members receive a notification. This is absolutely not what I want.
• The group members are then not displayed as a list, but as really unattractively laid out continuous text and not as a column.

So where is the advantage for me as a customer? I only see disadvantages.

Best regards
Jens

Update 2025-04-10: 

Hi, I did some more testing to see if the User List macro can be replaced by the @-Mentioning of Atlassian Teams and found that the display of team members by @-Mentioning in the Confluence pages where it was used is not updated when people are added or removed in the respective team.

Another very valid reason why the user list macro should not be removed.

[Valerie Knapp]

The service desk has created a suggestion to not deprecate the user list macro. You can vote on it here https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-81351 . @Jens Müntinga @Dana Bar Lavie Jones 

[Steven S]

It is ridiculous that any feature would be removed WITHOUT providing a replacement THAT PROVIDES THE SAME INFORMATION. 

Suggesting alternatives that do completely different things is not a solution. Nor is suggesting to go to the Marketplace to find some 3rd party user app.

Along with what other people have mentioned, I also make use of the Contributors and Page Index macros. These provide actual useful information to me, such as total counts of pages or user edits, etc and for ALL pages, NOT simply those with a specific label.

Just because a macro is 'infrequently used' DOES NOT mean it is not important and should be removed.

[Danja Karenko]

Please do NOT remove the User List macro.

We have no need to @ mention large groups of users -- there is already too much notification spam across Atlassian products. I.e., Team pings are NOT a substitute for the User List macro.

Our end users need an easy way to understand who is part of a group = which groups to use for permission management.

They should not have to bug our IT Support or Atlassian Admins every time they want to understand who is in which group!

--

Lobbying for anyone who agrees to upvote the respective Jira issue (thank you, Valerie Knapp!) https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-81351 .

[Jared Pittman]

The Spaces List alternative is also needlessly complex, and highly unintuitive.