Forum Discussion

Chad_V_Kealey's avatar
Chad_V_Kealey
Steel Contributor
Dec 03, 2020

Hiding SP Lists from the Microsoft Lists app?

In our organization, we often use SharePoint lists as data sources for Power Apps. Often, we want to prevent users from directly accessing the data in the list. We've found the most effective way to do that is to set the "hidden" flag on the list (via Powershell), which prevents the list from appearing the the Site contents page in SharePoint. However, it doesn't hide it from the Microsoft Lists app (which just went live in our tenant a couple weeks ago) for users with "Contribute" (or higher) permissions to it. Is there an equivalent property, or a plan to have MS Lists respect that "hidden" attribute? Or, is there a guide or documentation regarding the effect of permissions on visibility? That is, is there a way to create a custom permission level that will still allow users to create and edit items but NOT have the list show up in the Lists app?

Lists
Microsoft Lists
Permissions
SharePoint Online
  • Chad_V_Kealey's avatar
    Chad_V_Kealey
    Steel Contributor
    Dec 03, 2020

    I started poking around, looking at permission levels, and found a couple interesting things. First, I took a "personal" list (which resides in the site collection which houses my OneDrive) which I had shared with an Azure AD security group (giving them "edit" permission via the "Share" dialog). When I went to "Edit User Permissions" and found three permission levels I've never seen before in SharePoint (and I've been working with it for 15 years):

    They are "Review", "Web-Only Limited Access" and "Contribute on Lists". Out of curiosity, I went to a list in a SharePoint site which had unique permissions and did the same thing (selected a group, then "Edit User Permissions") and found that that "Review" permission level was there, but not the other two: 

    To my original question, I'm curious what the "Contribute on Lists" permission is for (I can find nothing on that at all). From the name, it seems like maybe it gives them contribute permission but only via the MS Lists app (e.g.: they wouldn't be able to use it outside of Lists). It's interesting that it only appears on Personal lists and not those in SharePoint (even SP lists created via the Lists app). 

     

    I also can't find anything on the "Review" permission level, either. There are some references on StackExchange to "Web-Only Limited Access", but nothing from MS explaining what it means or where it would be used.

    • AskKwesion's avatar
      AskKwesion
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 28, 2024
      I currently have the same issue. I want to ensure all users see just the SharePoint List and not the Microsoft List
      • Chad Kealey's avatar
        Chad Kealey
        Copper Contributor
        Apr 28, 2024

        AskKwesion There's only one list, but it can be viewed either in the SharePoint site where it's created/lives or in the Microsoft Lists app. They're just two different "windows" to the same data. 

         

        I have not found a way to hide the list from the MS Lists app that doesn't also hide it from SharePoint. There is a "hidden" attribute for each list that can be set using Powershell or an HTTP request (from a Power Automate flow) which prevents the list from showing up in "site contents". However, if users have a direct link to the list (e.g.: if you put that link in the site navigation), they'll be able to access the list through that link.