SPO: Permissions removed from root also being removed from subfolder despite inheritance disabled

[layer9de]

Dear all,

we are currently testing permissions in a SharePoint Online document library with several subfolders. I have noticed the following behavior which I don't understand. 

A document library contains  folder1 which again contains subfolder1. Both folders have permission inheritance disabled.

1. A user is explicitly added with edit permissions on subfolder1. "Share everything in this folder, even items with unique permissions" is disabled.

2. The same user is explicitly added on the folder above subfolder1 (folder1). "Share everything in this folder, even items with unique permissions" is disabled as well.

3. If I remove the user from folder1, it also gets removed from subfolder1 - even though permission inheritance is disabled and the permissions were explicitly set.

Can anyone explain why removing permissions on a folder also removes them from subfolders of that folder even though permission inheritance is disabled on them?

Thanks
Michael

[#2]

Hi, since the SubFolder's parent is the Folder1. when u give permission to SubFolder 1 automatically the read permission is added to the Parent folder. Now when you try to remove the permission from the Parent folder, automatically it will get removed from the sub folder too, since, without the parent, child cannot be accessed.