Include/Exclude Filters

This article explains how ad-hoc include/exclude filters work and how to combine them with waves.

Note

If you have not read about the general wave syntax yet, start with Migration Waves.

How filters work together with waves

Waves and filters are evaluated together, but they have different jobs:

Waves choose selectors from the Space Inventory you want to run.
Filters include or exclude specific spaces or content IDs, on-the-fly, withoug having to modify selectors in the Space Inventory.

The following example selects the pilot and review waves for migration, as well as the HR space, while excluding the page with ID 12345 from the migration run.

pilot review +space.key:HR -id:12345

Supported filter clauses

The following filter clauses are supported:

Clause	Meaning	Example
`+id:`	Include one content ID	`+id:12345`
`-id:`	Exclude one content ID	`-id:12345`
`+ids:`	Include multiple content IDs	`+ids:12345,67890`
`-ids:`	Exclude multiple content IDs	`-ids:12345,67890`
`+id!:`	Force one content ID to be enqueued; this will force-overwrite the SharePoint page	`+id!:12345`
`+ids!:`	Force multiple content IDs to be enqueued; this will force-overwrite the SharePoint pages	`+ids!:12345,67890`
`+space.key:`	Include one space by space key	`+space.key:HR`
`-space.key:`	Exclude one space by space key	`-space.key:ARCHIVE`
`+space.keys:`	Include multiple spaces by space key	`+space.keys:HR,FIN,IT`
`-space.keys:`	Exclude multiple spaces by space key	`-space.keys:ARCHIVE,LEGACY`
`+space.id:`	Include one space by space ID	`+space.id:123456`
`-space.id:`	Exclude one space by space ID	`-space.id:123456`
`+space.ids:`	Include multiple spaces by space ID	`+space.ids:123,456,789`
`-space.ids:`	Exclude multiple spaces by space ID	`-space.ids:123,456,789`

The +id! and +ids! filter variants force existing (previously migrated) SharePoint pages to be overwritten.

The +id and +ids filter variants (without !) behave “normally”:

if the page already exists in SharePoint and did not change in Confluence, the page is skipped in the migration run
if the page already exists in SharePoint and did change in Confluence, the page is either skipped, or overwritten, depending on the Update outdated SharePoint pages setting

Content IDs and content types

Content ID filters can optionally include a content type.

Example:

+id:12345;#blogpost

Use this in Confluence Cloud to explicitly address non-page content types like blog posts.

Examples

Migrate one named wave, but exclude one space:

pilot -space.key:ARCHIVE

Migrate two waves and include one specific content item:

1 2 +id:12345

Migrate one wave and include several specific pages:

pilot +ids:12345,67890,77777

Migrate one wave and force one specific page to be overwritten in SharePoint:

pilot +id!:12345

Migrate one wave and explicitly include several spaces:

pilot +space.keys:HR,FIN,IT

Order matters

When multiple filter clauses could match the same item, the first matching filter clause wins.

Because of that, put the more specific filter first.

Example:

pilot +id:12345 -space.key:ARCHIVE

In this example, content ID 12345 stays included even if it belongs to space ARCHIVE, because the specific include clause comes before the broader exclude clause.

If you reverse the order, the exclude clause wins:

pilot -space.key:ARCHIVE +id:12345

Separators

You can separate clauses with spaces, commas, or a mix of both.

Examples:

pilot review +space.key:HR
pilot,review,+space.key:HR
pilot, review +space.key:HR

Inside grouped filter clauses such as +ids: or +space.keys:, the individual values are separated with commas.

Typical usage patterns

run a wave and add a few specific pages: pilot +ids:12345,67890
run a wave and force specific pages to be overwritten: pilot +id!:12345
re-migrate a single page: dummywave +id!:12345 (dummywave doesn’t exist)

For the general wave syntax and examples like wave ranges or wildcards, see Migration Waves.

Last modified March 20, 2026