Forum Discussion

Joe Fischer's avatar
Joe Fischer
Brass Contributor
Sep 21, 2018
Solved

prevent sharing in one document libray but allow in other libraries

Hi All, I have a site with multiple Document libraries.  Each library has unique permissions, and the owner of one of the libraries would like to prevent users from sharing and downloading docs from...
Document Library
SharePoint Online
  • Joe Fischer's avatar
    Joe Fischer
    Sep 24, 2018

    Thank you All for your responses :)

    Unfortunately the answer to my issue is no I can't :(

     

    Thanks again,

    Joe

jcgonzalezmartin's avatar
jcgonzalezmartin
MVP
Sep 22, 2018

This is not going to work at all:
(1) Settings users to View Only does not prevent the Download option to dissapear. Just tested on a Communication Site where I have create a View Only permission level with the following permissions: View Items (Item Level Permissions) and View Pages and Open (Site Level Permissions)..this are minimum permissions for setting a permission level. Then I assigned the permission level to a user and whil the user accessed initially to the site, he gets a nice Access Denied to the site...so I guess the problem here is how Communication Sites are designed in regards of security. However, if you do the same in a classic sites and you use the default View Only permission level (that it's there), the Download button is not there.

(2) Disable "Download to Office Clients" is not a setting to disable sharing in the document library, is to hide the "Sync" option in the document library...and there is not way to disable the "Sharing" option at the document library as far as I know

jcgonzalezmartin's avatar
jcgonzalezmartin
MVP
Sep 22, 2018
And indeed cloning ther View Only permission level you have in a classic site in a Communication Site is going to grant access to the user without the Access Denied nice message, but then some other weir stuff happens: the user don't have access to the document library so I guess you have to start looking at the security configuration in the document library...this behavior take me to the same conclusion: if you can, try to avoid customizing security in a modern spo site (a modern team site or a communication one)
  • Joe Fischer's avatar
    Joe Fischer
    Brass Contributor
    Sep 22, 2018

    Thanks all,

    I am bit disappointing that we can't customize permissions more.  I need my users to be able to upload and modify documents, so View won't work for me.

     

    I have created a custom permission I call "Contribute No Delete" which is a clone of contribute, where I removed the delete option.  I was hoping for something along those lines. 

     

    Thanks again All,

    Joe

    • Alan Marshall's avatar
      Alan Marshall
      Iron Contributor
      Sep 23, 2018
      The next level would be to go to Azure Information Protection and apply an encryption policy that would allow you to control at a more granular level preventing Save As and Printing for instance. This may then satisfy the download requirement by securing the documents better if that was the intent of setting this option.

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