How does SharePoint Online count unique permission scopes when assigning multiple users to a folder?

Question

Hello,

I’m trying to understand how SharePoint Online counts unique permissions in a document library.

Suppose I break permission inheritance for a folder in a SharePoint Online Document Library and assign 3 users (e.g., User1, User2, and User3) to that folder with specific permissions.

My question is:

Will this count as 3 unique permissions, or just 1 unique permission scope toward the 5,000 unique permission scope limit per list or library?

I understand that SharePoint has a soft limit of 5,000 unique permission scopes per library, and I want to ensure I don’t exceed it unintentionally.

Any official clarification or Microsoft documentation reference would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

In SharePoint Online, the 5,000 unique permission scope limit refers to the number of unique permission scopes, not the number of individual users or groups assigned permissions.

So in your case, you broke inheritance on a folder and assigned User1, User2, and User3 specific permissions.

This counts as 1 unique permission scope, not 3.

• A unique permission scope is created each time you break inheritance for an item (file/folder/list item).
• It doesn't matter how many users or groups you assign to that item after breaking inheritance — it's still considered a single unique scope.

Example:

Item	Inheritance Broken?	Custom Permissions	Counts as Unique Scope
Folder A	Yes	User1, User2, User3	Yes — 1 unique scope
File B	No	Inherits from library	No
Folder C	Yes	Group A	Yes —

Regarding official Microsoft documentation, refer to Microsoft Docs – Manage large lists and libraries If a folder has two files in it and you share them both with a user, that will cost you three scopes: one for the parent folder and one for each of the files that was shared individually. It doesn't matter that you shared both files with the user and the ACLs of the files are identical. Once you break the inheritance of a file or folder from its parent, you create a unique scope.

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hth

Marcin