Introduction
The main purpose of this article is to answer the question and provide options for gaining back licenses from users that no longer actively use Confluence.
The short answer, is licenses can be freed up from by disabling users and flushing the Confluence Cache.
Disabling a User
This is currently the preferred way to get a license back. It is preferred to disable a user as historical information and user history is maintained.
Removing a User
Before a user can be removed all edits, comments and spaces must be removed or the user will not be removed. It is advised to only remove a user, if that user never actually used his or her account.
4 Comments
Tin Pham
Hey Roderick, what happens if user test edited a document, then user clark.kent edited next. How do you remove user's test's edit without ruining the document?
Roderick Fong Yee
So far they have not implemented a version history delete its not on the roadmap someone pointed out this would be a good thing 8 years ago and it still has not happened https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-996
Tin Pham
Thanks Roderick. I'm still not clear though on if we can still remove the user with the scenario I described. Are you out of luck at that stage?
Roderick Fong Yee
Yes once the user edits anything its hard to get rid of them without deleting the files that they are tied to on due to not being able to delete the version history they are responsible for. That is why the confluence site recommends disabling the user.