What would be the best way to share a file in O365 group to external user(not invited guest)?

[주현 김]

I have a large file on O365 group which is being shared with my tenant members and invited guest co-workers.

I need to share one of my O365 group file to external user who is not invited yet. This is because I want to get quotation from tentative supplier.

I tried to get anonymous link, or share a file to specific user typing his email from file share fuction.(not group wise, nor inviting him to my O365 group)

But was unable to do so. System says admin(which is me) has disabled external shareing. But I clearly turned external shareing option on from my tenant.

Now I need to download 3Gbyte file, and then upload to my onedrive again, and will use onedrive file shareing function.

Is there anyway to do so in O365 group? If I could only give a different permission per each file, it would be very simple task.

[#2]

It is not possible to share O365 Groups files to the user as you have mentioned. AFAIK, the work around would be to add the user to Azure B2B and share it, if that works. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/documentation/articles/active-directory-b2b-collaboration-overview...

[#3 · Accepted solution]

This could potentially change with Modern Team Sites...but as Santhosh has said you cannot do this with current Groups implementation without having to apply a workaround

[#4]

Thanks. Wow your link is too heavy.. I just wanted simple user-end job.

Thanks anyway.

[#5]

Is this correct that currently it is not possible to share individual file to external user, who is not granted access to Group? In this article it is stated that it should be possible:

"The sharing mechanism enabled by guest users accommodates two kinds of interaction with groups. A guest user can be allowed access to a specific file stored in a group document library or they can be granted access to the document library as a whole, in which case the guest is listed among the group membership. In this respect, sharing operates very much like the feature available in SharePoint Online. "

https://www.petri.com/external-access-office-365-groups

But in fact it is not possible with the error message that external sharing is prohibited if individual file shared for external user, however the same user can be invited to the Group without problems. How it should be by design?

Thank you!

[#6]

The mechanism followed by Office 365 Groups in general and Office 365 Groups site collection differ by each other. In Office 365 Groups you can able to any member as Guest user which in turn grant the access to the groups document library. But in Groups site collection, you can able to share with external members that are already added in AAD.

[#7]

Is there any ETA to solve this?

Or is it designed to be?

The more I use O365 groups with site created by groups, I need to share single file or folder to external user who is not invited in groups.

Everytime I do that, it is nightmare. I download that file for folder, and upload it to my onedrive again, and share it.

I just do not get it why  this is not working yet.

[#8]

Hi,

I just have come across some workaround and it work pretty nice. First of all you have to make sure that external user is added to Azure AD. The best way to do so is:

1. Create Group "External guests" with no content and to invite external user. Once he/she accepts - he is added to user list and now you'll be able to send him/her invitation to single Group (not "External guests", but whatever you need) file or library.
2. Create Access Group in Sharepoint site (let's say "Team site" or specially designed for those cases) "Externals" and add external users, that you would need to give access to Group files. Once they accept invitation, they are registered in User list and no more issues inviting them to a single file.

At least it helped for us and our customers. Best regards, Solveiga.