I accidentally deleted all limited access users on a Sharepoint Subsite, after having broken Inheritance with the parent site

Hi Victor,

Thank you for the detailed information you provided. We understand the inconvenience caused by it. And We’re still glad to help you.

For the save a site as template problem, you may need to allow custom script. As a global or SharePoint admin in Office 365, you can allow custom script as a way of letting users change the look, feel, and behavior of sites and pages to meet organizational objectives or individual needs. If you allow custom script, all users who have "Add and Customize Pages" permission to a site or page can add any script they want. Save Site as Template feature will be affected when custom script is blocked. As shown below:

If you want to allow custom script on a particular site (previously called "site collection") immediately, follow these steps:

1. Download the latest SharePoint Online Management Shell.
2. Connect to SharePoint Online as a global admin or SharePoint admin in Office 365. To learn how, see Getting started with SharePoint Online Management Shell.
3. Run the following command: Set-SPOsite <SiteURL> -DenyAddAndCustomizePages****0     (If you change this setting for a user's OneDrive or a classic team site, it will be overridden by the Custom Script setting in the admin center within 24 hours.)

For more details, you can refer to this article: Allow or prevent custom script.

At the same time, the Site Collection Features this option is only achieved in parent site. Meanwhile, as I mentioned above, please confirm that you have not activated SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure in the Site collection Features of the parent site.

For the inheritance question, you mentioned “I deleted were the list of limited access users”, if you delete the limited access users in subsite, these users cannot access parent site, it is by default. As shown below:

Limited access users means that these users can only access this subsite but cannot access the parent site. So even if you stop inheriting permissions, as long as you delete these Limited access users, these users can not access the parent site and the subsite.

Basically the reason Limited Access first shows up on both the parent site as well as the subsite is because to access the subsite, the user will need access to the parent site - this is what makes a user has Limited Access.

If the user has it's Limited Access deleted from the subsite, then he/she would not need to have a Limited Access permission again in the parent site, hence why it is also gone.

For more details, you can refer to this article: Default Permission Levels.

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hi Victor,

Thank you for your message in this forum.

If you only changed the permission of the site, generally, the site should not be deleted in this way. You can try to access the site with the sub-site URL directly in browser. If the page shows a 404 error, it means the site has been deleted. If the page shows other error such as 403 or permission request, that means the site is till existing but you have no permission to access it. You can tell us the result to let us know.

Furthermore, you don’t need to be too anxious because Even if your sub-site is deleted, we still can restore it back as long as you get access permission again to the parent site.

So the first thing we need to deal with is to let you get the access permission again to the parent site (Based on your descriptions, it seems you can’t access the site for some reason). You can contact with the SharePoint admin, the SharePoint admin can go to Admin centers > SharePoint> click the problematic site > click “Owners” button on the tool bar > Change group owners or change admins > add your account again as a site collection administrators or ownwer. Then check whether you can access this site collection again by this way.

If you still can’t access the site, So to better to help you, I want to confirm the information below with you:

1. What’s the type of the site? Is it a modern site, for example, Office 365 group site, or is it a classic team site? Could you provide the detailed steps about how you deleted the everyone?
2. You mentioned “not even the Parent Website since it is not linked anymore”, do you mean you can’t access the whole site collection?

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hello Sukie, 

The problem seems to have been fixed, but my manipulation had some unfortunate repercussions on the parent website.

Therefore I have an additional question: is it possible to go back in time? For example, let's say a mistake was made on the 1st of June. Is it possible to restore the Sharepoint website to a previous date, for example the 31st of May, in order to come back before the modification?

Also, in my case, the deletion of permissions on the Subsite apparently affected the permissions of the parent website as well. Is it possible that it comes from me deleting permissions on the Subsite, as inheritance was broken with the parent website ? 

Best Regards,

Victor.

Hi Victor,

Thank you for your detailed message.

The error message you encountered shows that it is a permission issue.

I have tested it according to the situation you provided. Based on my test, SharePoint administrator or your company global admin can still go to Admin centers > SharePoint > go to the problematic parent site and find that subsite (For how to find that site, generally, we don’t find subsite with the steps you mentioned, please let the admin and go to parent site > Site Contents to find the subsite) > click Site Permission > click Grant Permission and assign the permission again.

So we’d suggest you contact with the SharePoint administratoror your company global admin, he can refer to the steps above to find the subsite and assign you the Full control permission again.

Please do let us know if that works for you, we’ll be glad to provide further help.

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hello Sukie,

When I click on the Subsite link, I get this message:

"Let us know why you need access to this site."

When I explain my problem in the box below this message, it sends a request by mail, but I am the one receiving the request by mail, and obviously I can't grant access to myself as I can't access the Subsite.

Also, I have "Full Control" access to the Parent Webwsite. However, the Subsite I was working on doesn't appear when I go to "Site Settings" -> "Site Administration" -> "Sites and Workspaces". I think it comes from the fact that I broke inheritance from the parent website. Therefore it would make sense the parent website doesn't have access to the Subsite. 

1. I think it is a normal Sharepoint website but I don't want to be mistaken. In regards to the steps I took to delete the permissions, I did the following: first, I went to "site settings", then "site permissions". There was a yellow rectangle over the permission groups and one sentence was mentionning "There are limited access users on this site. Users may have limited access if an item or document under the site has been shared with them. Show users". I clicked on the Show users link and I swas the list. I selected all the elements and deleted the list. Unfortunately, the list was including a group, which was including me. 
2. I think you already have the answer with my explanation earlier.

Thank you for your help,

Victor.