Background Exports & My Exports

Small exports are generated right in your browser. Large ones — hundreds of pages, or many images — are generated on Atlassian's servers instead, in the background. You can close the page while they run and download the result later from My exports.

Nothing leaves Atlassian: background exports run on Atlassian Forge and are stored in Atlassian's own storage.

Where an Export Is Generated

The Where to generate option in the exporter's sidebar decides where the PDF is built:

Option	What happens
Auto (recommended)	Small exports are built in your browser; large ones go to the server. The exporter tells you which it picked and why.
This browser	Always build in your browser. Fastest for small exports; the page must stay open until it's done.
Server (background)	Always build on the server. You can leave the page; the file appears in My exports.

With Auto, an export goes to the server when it has more than 30 pages, more than 60 attachments, or more than 50 MB of attachments.

The Documentation site layout is built in the browser only.

Following a Background Export

After you start a background export, a progress card shows each step — fetching pages, rendering, laying out the PDF — and updates live. When it's done, download the file straight from the card, or dismiss the card and find the file later in My exports.

If you close the exporter while an export runs, the card comes back the next time you open it.

My Exports

Open My exports from the sidebar on the PDF Exporter page (Apps → PDF Exporter for Confluence). It lists the exports generated on the server for you — including runs of your scheduled exports and exports started through the REST API.

For each export you can:

Download the file (large ZIP exports may come in several parts)
View attachment, when the export was also attached to a Confluence page
Delete it

Exports are kept for 7 days by default, then deleted automatically. Your admin can change this. Old exports may also be removed early when the site reaches its export storage limit; My exports says when that happened.

Limits

Export	Limit
One merged PDF	Up to 500 pages, and up to about 100 MB of page content (mostly images). Larger selections must be exported as separate PDFs (ZIP).
Separate PDFs (ZIP)	Up to 2,000 pages. Very large exports are split into several ZIP files.

For Admins: Exports & Storage

Site admins manage background exports in Confluence Settings → PDF Exporter → Exports & storage:

See how much export storage the site uses, and every user's exports
Set Keep exports for (1–90 days) and the Storage limit for this site
Delete any export

Expired exports are cleaned up once a day.