SharePoint document library permissions

In this SharePoint tutorial, we will discuss SharePoint Online document library permissions. And also we will discuss how to create unique permission for the SharePoint document library. And also, we will see how to give item-level permission in the SharePoint document library.

We will also discuss the below topics on SharePoint Online document library permissions.

SharePoint document library Permissions

As a SharePoint administrator or SharePoint site owner, we can change the permission, so that the correct people can able access the data that they need to access in the SharePoint document library.

• In SharePoint by default, all sites, and list libraries in a site collection inherit the permissions which are directly above them in the SharePoint site hierarchy. This means a SharePoint site can inherit the permission from the source site and a SharePoint subsite can inherit the permission from the parent site.
• In SharePoint, neither we can break permission inheritance on the library itself nor we can re-inherit the permission on the library itself.
• If we want to assign unique permission to a SharePoint document library, we have to first break the permission inheritance and then only we can assign unique permission to the document library.

How to assign unique permissions to a SharePoint Online document library

• Now, let us see how we can assign unique permissions to a SharePoint Online document library.
• To achieve this, initially, we need to break the permission of the SharePoint document library. By default, it will inherit the permission from the parent site.

Let us see how to break permission inheritance in the modern SharePoint Online document library,

• Open the SharePoint Online document library for which you want to break the inherit permission, Select the settings gear icon, and click on Library Settings.

• In the Library settings page, Under Permissions and Management select the Permission for this document library option.

• Now to break permission inheritance from the parent site, under the Permissions tab, Choose the Stop Inheriting Permissions.
• Once you break permission inheritance for the SharePoint list, you can assign unique permission or grant permission to the new user, and the modern SharePoint online library.

• In the pop-up box, click on the Ok button. Any changes made in the parent site permission will not affect the SharePoint document library.

• Once you break permission inheritance, we can see options to grant, modify, remove and check permission in the modern SharePoint Online document library, under the Permissions tab as shown below:

This is how to break permission inheritance in the SharePoint Online document library. Now, we can assign unique permissions to the SharePoint Online document library.

Let us see how to assign unique permission in the modern SharePoint Online document library,

Make sure you have stopped the inheritance permission for the document library, only then we can assign unique permissions to the modern SharePoint document library.

• Open the SharePoint Online document library-> Select the settings gear icon -> click on the Library Settings.
• On the Library setting page, Under Permissions and Management select the Permission for this document library option.
• To assign unique permission, select the Grant Permissions option under the Permissions tab. If you are unable to see the Grant permission option then the document library is still inheriting permissions from the parent site.

• Now, In the dialogue box, we can invite the user by entering the email address or name to the SharePoint Online document library.
• We can also have an option to send an invite message which is an optional field.
• Once we click on the Show Options we can see another two options to send an email invitation and to choose the Permission level for the specified user.
• If we want to send an email invitation to the selected user, we can check the checkbox else we can uncheck it.
• We can set the permission level for the user to access the SharePoint Online document library.
• By default, the edit permission level is granted for the users, we can also change the permission level as mentioned below:
  • Full Control – Users have full control to access the SharePoint document library, they can even add and delete members to the site.
  • Design – Users can create new document libraries, columns, and views, and also they can customize the layouts.
  • Edit – Users can add, view, edit and delete the SharePoint document library, and also they can add, view, update and delete the SharePoint document library items.
  • Contribute – Users can add, view, update and delete the SharePoint document library.
  • Read – Users can only download documents and view the document library, they cannot able to edit the SharePoint document library.

• Click on the Share button to send the invitation to the selected users like below.

In the below screenshot, we can see that the Shared User is added with the assigned permissions under the Permissions tab.

This is how to assign unique permissions in the SharePoint Online document library.

Read How to share a SharePoint site with external users

Restore inheritance to delete all unique permissions in the SharePoint Online document library

Let us see how to delete all the unique permissions to restore inheritance in the SharePoint Online document library,

• Open the SharePoint Online document library-> Select the settings gear icon -> click on the Library Settings.
• On the Library setting page, Under Permissions and Management select the Permission for this document library option.
• Under the Permissions tab, select the Delete unique permission from the inheritance option.

• Click on the Ok button to remove all the unique permissions, so that it will restore inherit permission from the parent SharePoint site.

This is how to delete all the unique permissions to restore inheritance in the SharePoint Online document library.

Change permissions levels in a SharePoint Online document library

Let us see how to change permissions levels for the users in the SharePoint Online document library.

• Open the SharePoint Online document library-> Select the settings gear icon -> click on the Library Settings.
• In the List setting page, Under Permissions and Management select the Permission for this document library option.
• To change the permission level, Under the Permissions tab in the modify section, Select or Check the user to whom you want to change the permissions and click on the Edit User permission option.

In this example, I have selected the test user name called User2 which already has full control permission. Now I am going to change the full control permission to edit permission for the selected user.

On the Edit Permissions page, Under Permissions Select or check the permission that you want to change and click on the Ok button to save your changes.

In the below screenshot, you can see that Permission has changed for the selected user called user2 from the full control permission to edit permission.

This is how to change permissions levels for the selected users in the SharePoint Online document library.

Read How to use SharePoint document library web part

Remove user permissions from the SharePoint Online document library

Let us see how to remove user permissions from a SharePoint Online document library,

• Open the SharePoint Online document library-> Select the settings gear icon -> click on the Library Settings.
• In the Library settings page, Under Permissions and Management select the Permission for this document library option.
• Under the Permissions tab, Select or Check the user whom you want to remove from the SharePoint document library.

In this example, I am going to remove a user name called User2 from the SharePoint document library.

In the pop-up box, click on the Ok button, to remove the user from the SharePoint document library.

In the below screenshot, you can see that the selected user called User2 is removed from the SharePoint document library.

This is how to remove user permissions from the SharePoint Online document library.

Read SharePoint Online Planner Web Part

Share SharePoint document library with external users

Let us see how to share the SharePoint Online document library file or folder with an external user.

• Yes, we can share a file or folder from the document library with the user who wants to access the file or folder.
• At a time we can only share one file or folder, We cannot share Multiple files or folders from the SharePoint Online document library.

Follow the below steps to share a file or folder from the document library with external users:

• Open the SharePoint Online document library, and select the file or folder that you want to share from the document library.
• Once the folder or file is selected either click on the Share option presented in the toolbar or the Share icon as shown below:

• Once the Share option is selected, you can able to see the Link settings option, now select the Anyone with the link option and click on the Apply button.
• Under Other settings, when you select the can edit items option, then the anonymous user or external user can edit the Shared SharePoint document library.

• Here we can type the external user email address or name and select send option to share the link, or we can either copy the link and share it manually by selecting the Copy link option.

• The Shared user can able to view the folder shared with them and not all the folders or files that are available in the document library.

This is how to share the SharePoint Online document library file or the folder with an external user.

You may like the following SharePoint tutorials:

• SharePoint Online List Permissions
• Grant user access to SharePoint site office 365
• How to export user permission in SharePoint using PowerShell
• SharePoint 2013 list item level permission using REST API
• SharePoint Online List Lookup Column

In this SharePoint tutorial, we discussed the below topics:

• SharePoint document library Permissions
• How to assign unique permissions to a SharePoint Online document library
• Restore inheritance to delete all unique permissions in the SharePoint Online document library
• Change permissions levels in a SharePoint Online document library
• Remove user permissions from the SharePoint Online document library
• Share SharePoint document library with external users