Folder Permissions in Groups

Iron Contributor

I have 3 folders within a Group site library which I want to only be visible/accessible to 3 staff members.  I have removed the "inherit folder permissions from parent" but these folders are still visible.  When I look at the Advanced page for permissions I see "Group Members" and "group Owners" and then when I click on "Group Members" there is a group within the group that says "Everyone except external users".   What is the purpose of being part of a group if you can't lock down the folders to just group members?   How do I set up these folders so only particular members can see the folders?   

7 Replies

That's the "default" behavior for Public groups. If you don't want non-members to see the files, change the group type to Private. Even for Private groups, all members can see the files, the premise of using a group is "equal access". So if you want further restrictions you will have to manually adjust the permissions.

I understand the "equal access" but what I'm trying to figure out is how to block a single folder within a group.   There has to be a way to assign permissions to a single folder to select members of the group.  


@Tom Robey wrote:

I have removed the "inherit folder permissions from parent" but these folders are still visible. 


That's step 1 of a 2 step process.

 

1) Remove "inherit folder permissions from parent" - this removes the connection from the parent object but importantly does not change any permissions at that time

2) Adjust the permissions on the folder. e.g. remove the Visitors group or set the Members group to read etc.

 

Yep, as Kevin has well said you have to add/remove the users / groups you want to grant access to the folder

Or use Azure Information Protection (included in your Office 365 subscription) to protect the information that you only want selected staff members to see. I cover the topic here https://www.petri.com/protecting-office-365-document-libraries-guest-users in the context of protecting information against guest users, but the same technique works if you want to secure access to confidential information for selected tenant users.

Can I ask you where do I find the "inherit folder permissions from parent" setting? As it looks like that I can only set that for library instead of a particular folder in a library?

"Advanced Permissions" in the "i" Info panel.

 

Or via classic UI

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/change-the-permissions-on-a-subfolder-5427bd7c-f20a-4f75-8c...