Forum Discussion
Can default permission groups be restored in SharePoint Online?
Hi everyone,
In a SharePoint Online site, someone with permissions modified the default site groups (Owners, Members, and Visitors), replacing the users and groups that were originally there.
This also affected several subsites and lists that inherited permissions from the main site, and even some lists with broken inheritance were unexpectedly modified. I’m not sure if that’s directly related.
I have Site Collection Administrator permissions, but I’m not a SharePoint global admin, so there may be things I can’t see or do.
Should I escalate this to a global admin? Is there any way to check or recover how those groups were configured a few days ago?
Any advice or shared experience would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
2 Replies
You can restore default permission groups by going to https://<your-site-url>/_layouts/15/permsetup.aspx This takes you to the Permission Setup page, where you can reassign or recreate the default groups. This lets you reassign the default Owners, Members, and Visitors groups, either by creating new ones or selecting existing groups
You can either select "Restore Default Permission Groups" in the website permission settings, or use PowerShell to reset permission inheritance to restore the default permission groups ， both methods are applicable.
