How to Export Confluence to Obsidian (With Wikilinks)

Confluence and Obsidian serve different needs. Confluence is where teams collaborate on documentation. Obsidian is where individuals build a personal knowledge base, connect ideas, and think in networks of linked notes.

If you use both, you've probably felt the friction: Confluence content doesn't transfer cleanly to Obsidian. Copy-pasting loses formatting. Downloading HTML is useless. Internal links between pages become broken references.

Markdown Exporter for Confluence solves this with a dedicated Obsidian mode that converts Confluence page links to [[wikilinks]] automatically.

The Problem With Standard Confluence Export

Confluence's built-in export options are HTML and PDF. Neither works with Obsidian:

HTML — Obsidian doesn't render HTML as notes. You'd need to strip tags manually.
PDF — read-only, not searchable in Obsidian's graph, and not linkable.

Even if you extract text, internal links ([See also: Architecture Overview](/wiki/spaces/PROJ/pages/...) become long URLs that Obsidian doesn't recognise as note links. Your knowledge graph breaks.

What Obsidian Mode Does

When you enable Obsidian mode in Markdown Exporter, every internal Confluence page link is converted to [[Page Title]] format:

Before (standard export):

See the [Architecture Overview](https://yoursite.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PROJ/pages/123456/Architecture+Overview) for context.

After (Obsidian mode):

See the [[Architecture Overview]] for context.

Obsidian resolves wikilinks by note title, so as long as the referenced page is in your vault, the link works — and shows up in the graph view.

Step-by-Step: Export Confluence to Obsidian

Step 1 — Install Markdown Exporter

Install Markdown Exporter for Confluence from the Atlassian Marketplace. It requires Confluence Cloud and takes about 30 seconds to install.

Step 2 — Open the Exporter

Navigate to the Confluence page or space you want to export. Click ••• (More actions) → Export to Markdown. For a full space, open it from the Apps menu in global navigation.

Step 3 — Enable Obsidian Mode

In the export options panel, toggle Obsidian Wikilinks on. This switches internal link output from standard Markdown links to [[Page Title]] format.

Step 4 — Configure YAML Front Matter (Optional)

Enable YAML front matter to include metadata at the top of each exported note:

---
title: Architecture Overview
author: Jane Smith
date: 2026-04-23
space: PROJ
confluence_id: "123456"
---

This is useful if you use Obsidian plugins like Dataview to query note properties, or if you want to track which Confluence page each note came from.

Step 5 — Select Scope and Export

Choose your scope:

Single page — exports one .md file
Page tree — exports a parent page and its children as a structured ZIP
Full space — exports everything in the space as a ZIP with folder hierarchy

Use the in-tree search to find specific pages if you only need a subset.

Step 6 — Add to Your Obsidian Vault

Extract the ZIP into a folder inside your Obsidian vault. Obsidian will immediately index the notes. If you enabled wikilinks mode, the internal links between pages will resolve — and they'll appear in the graph view.

What the Export Preserves

Content Type	Obsidian Output
Headings	`#`, `##`, `###`
Bold / Italic	`bold`, `italic`
Tables	Standard Markdown tables
Code blocks	Fenced with language tag
Lists	Ordered and unordered
Images & attachments	Downloaded, referenced with relative paths
Internal page links	`[[Page Title]]` wikilinks
External links	Standard `[text](url)`
Info / warning panels	Blockquotes

Tips for Obsidian Users

Use a dedicated folder. Keep your Confluence imports in a subfolder like confluence/ so they don't mix with your personal notes. You can still link across folders.

Sync regularly with a script. If your team's Confluence content changes often, set up a regular export and overwrite the vault folder. Links won't break as long as page titles stay the same.

Combine with Dataview. If you include YAML front matter, you can build Dataview queries over your Confluence notes — e.g. all pages in a specific space, or notes modified after a certain date.

Check complex macros. Most Confluence content converts cleanly. Heavily customised layouts or third-party macros may need a quick review after export.