Managing System and Marketplace Apps
An app is a separately installed component that extends the basic Confluence functionality.
Not to be confused with the Confluence mobile app that users install on their own device, these apps are installed by a Confluence admin, and act like an extension to Confluence. They are also known 'plugins' or 'add-ons'.
There are two main types of apps:
- System apps - these are bundled with Confluence and provide core functionality
- User installed apps - these are usually downloaded from The Marketplace and may have been created by Atlassian or by a third party developer.
For information about developing your own apps for Confluence, see the Confluence Server and Data Center Developer documentation.
About the Universal Plugin Manager
System and Marketplace apps are managed via the Universal Plugin Manager (known as the UPM). The UPM can be found in most Atlassian applications, and provides a consistent experience for administering apps. To visit the UPM, go to 
> Manage apps in the Confluence header.
The UPM allows you to:
- Discover and install new apps from the Atlassian Marketplace.
- Install or remove apps.
- Configure app settings.
- Enable or disable apps and their component modules.
- Confirm app compatibility before upgrading Confluence.
You'll need Confluence Administrator permissions to access the UPM.
See Request Marketplace Apps for information on how users can find and request add-ons.
See the Universal Plugin Manager documentation for more information on using the UPM.
ADMINS
To improve security, Confluence 8.5.7, we disabled the Upload App button. This change doesn’t affect the installation of apps from the Atlassian Marketplace.
System admins can still enable app installation via some workarounds.
If your instance is running on a single node:
Option 1: Re-enable the UI upload button and API
- Set the system property
upm.plugin.upload.enabledtotrue. - Perform a restart.
Upload the app through the UPM UI.
We recommend that you disable the button once your upload is complete, using the additional steps below.Set the system property
upm.plugin.upload.enabledtofalse,Perform a restart.
Option 2: Load custom plugins from your Confluence file system
If the system property
atlassian.confluence.plugin.scan.directoryis not set, provide the target location of your custom plugins. We recommend a directory within the Confluence home directory, such as$CONFLUENCE_HOME/plugins/installed-plugins.Restart Confluence.
If your instance is running on multiple nodes, you can:
Option 1: Re-enable the UI upload button and API.
On each node, set the system property
upm.plugin.upload.enabledtotrue.Perform a rolling restart.
Upload the app through the UPM UI.
We recommend that you disable the button once your upload is complete, using the additional steps below.On each node, set the system property
upm.plugin.upload.enabledtofalsePerform a rolling restart.
Option 2: Load custom plugins from your Confluence file system
If the system property
atlassian.confluence.plugin.scan.directoryis not set, provide a filesystem location for it on each node. We recommend a directory within the Confluence home directory, such as$CONFLUENCE_HOME/plugins/installed-plugins.- On each node, populate the directory specified in
atlassian.confluence.plugin.scan.directorywith any apps you’d like installed Perform a rolling restart.
Disable and uninstall apps
You can disable or unsubscribe from user installed apps that are no longer being used on your site. See Disabling and enabling apps to find out how to do this.
Once the app is disabled, its features are immediately unavailable. If the app included macros, pages that contained those macros will show an 'unknown macro' error. To avoid this, you can check which macros are being used on your site before disabling an app by checking the macro usage statistics.
Go to Administration 
> General Configuration > Macro Usage.