How to Use the SharePoint Quick Links Web Part (Layouts, Icons and Audiences)

When I build an intranet home page, the first thing people ask for is a set of links they use every day: the employee handbook, payroll, training and the help desk. If those aren’t visible the moment someone lands on the page, they assume the site doesn’t have them.

The SharePoint Quick Links web part solves that. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to add it, add and edit links, choose between its six layouts, reorder links, and show some links only to certain groups with audience targeting.

Quick answer: Edit the page, select the + where you want the web part, search for Quick links and add it. Select + Add links to add pages, files or web addresses, pick a layout (Compact, Filmstrip, Grid, Button, List or Tiles) above the web part, and select Republish.

Step 1: Add the Quick Links web part

Open the page and select Edit in the top right. Hover over the area where you want the links, select the circled +, type Quick links in the search box and select it. You can also open the Toolbox on the right side of the page and find it there.

The empty web part appears with a title placeholder and an Add a link option:

Type over the title to name it. I called mine Employee Self Service. If you’re building a whole home page, see how to customize a SharePoint site home page for where Quick Links fits.

Step 2: Add your links

Select + Add links. SharePoint lets you pick the link from several places:

• Recent files and pages you’ve worked with.
• Stock images, when you only want a picture for the tile.
• A site, to link to another SharePoint site.
• OneDrive, Your computer (to upload a file) or Your organization, if your company has an organization assets library.
• From a link, to paste any web address.

For the handbook, I selected From a link, pasted the address and selected Add:

SharePoint fills in a title and picks an icon or thumbnail for you. The first link now appears in the web part:

If you use web search for an image, the results are Creative Commons images from Bing, so check the license before you use one on your intranet.

Step 3: Edit a link

To change a link, hover over it in edit mode and select the Edit (pencil) icon. In the properties pane you can:

• Select Change under Link to point it to a new address.
• Edit the Title, which is the text people see.
• Choose the thumbnail: let SharePoint pick it, upload a custom image, or choose an icon.
• Add alternative text for screen readers.

I added five more links the same way: Payroll & Salary Slips, Training & Learning Hub, HR Policies & Forms, Leave & Attendance Portal and Helpdesk / Raise a Ticket:

Reorder and remove links

Drag a link by its Move icon, or select it and press Ctrl+Left or Ctrl+Right. To remove a link, select its trash can icon. You can’t reorder links in the Filmstrip layout, so put them in order before you switch to it.

Step 4: Choose a layout

The layouts change how the links look, not the links themselves, so you can switch any time. In edit mode, pick a layout from the options above the web part, and use Edit properties for the settings of that layout:

Layout	What it looks like	Good for
Compact	A small icon or image (48 x 48 pixels) next to each title	Many links in a narrow column
Filmstrip	Large 16:9 images you scroll through	Visual links, like training videos
Grid	Large square tiles with an image and title	A handful of important resources
Button	Buttons with an icon and text	Actions like “Submit a request”
List	A simple list with icons	Long lists of documents
Tiles	Square tiles with an icon and title	A short set of main destinations

Some options only exist in certain layouts: Show image in layout for Compact, and Show descriptions for List and Button. Here’s the same set of links in Filmstrip, Grid and List:

And here they are as Tiles, plus the Button layout with its appearance settings:

On most home pages, I use Button or Compact for everyday links and keep big images for the hero area. If you only need one big button, the SharePoint Button web part or the Call to action web part is simpler.

Step 5: Show links only to certain groups

Audience targeting lets you show a link only to the people it’s for. For example, a “Manager Toolkit” link only managers see. Everyone else sees the rest of the links as usual.

1. Select Edit properties on the web part, and in the Filter section turn on Enable audience targeting.
2. Edit the link you want to target and add one or more groups under Audiences to target.
3. Select Republish. Targeting only takes effect on the published page.

You can target Microsoft 365 groups, security groups and dynamic groups from Microsoft Entra ID. New groups or membership changes can take a while to show up. The same feature works in menus; see how to enable audience targeting in SharePoint navigation.

Tips and troubleshooting

• Someone can’t see a link: check that they have permission to the target page or file, and that the link isn’t targeted to a group they’re not in.
• Targeting doesn’t work: republish the page and give new groups some time.
• The image is cut off: Filmstrip uses a 16:9 shape, so use wide images for it.
• The same links on every site: put them in a hub’s navigation instead. See how to create a hub site in SharePoint Online.
• Reuse the layout: save the page as a template. See how to create page templates in SharePoint.

These SharePoint web part tutorials go well with Quick Links:

• SharePoint Online Hero Web Part – How to Use
• SharePoint Highlighted Content Web Part
• Events Web Part in SharePoint Online
• SharePoint People Web Part [With Examples]

Frequently Asked Questions