Sharepoint: disable inheritance at document library when custom manage access in specific file, why this behavior?

Question

Hello Team,

In Sharepoint online, by default site permission are inherited to document library, folders inside the document library and items inside the folder.

It is possible to disable the inheritance for the document library using the option “Stop Inheriting Permissions” in the library settings

In my case, I don’t disable the inheritance using this path. What I do is create specific access to a file and then share it externally, then, the inheritance is disable at document library level.

After I shared the file, the inheritance appear disabled, do you know why this is the behavior, in theory I want that the document library continue inheriting the permissions from Site and only personalize the access to a single file, we don’t want disable the inheritance at document level.

Answer 1

Hi @Sergio Londono ,

Thank you for posting in this community.

When I delete members and visitors to this file, then share this file. The inheritance of this file will be automatically broken. However, the inheritance of the Document Library Level will not be affected.

It seems this is not a common issue per my test. However, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation. So, Please kindly provide more information below to let us work further.

1.Before you do this, make sure that the permission inheritance of the document level is not broken?

2.Whether all SharePoint libraries have the same problem? You could create a new SharePoint library to check.

3.This issue occurs if it is a specific library. As a workaround, after setting unique permissions for the file, go back to the document library settings and ensure that the inheritance is still enabled. If it appears disabled, you can re-enable it manually.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.