Restricted View Access on Sharepoint

Question

I would like to understand how I can toggle on the restricted view permissions on a sharepoint document library, as I would like to create a folder to share with external guests where they can view the documents, but not download any information from the folder. It has been extremely frustrating as the "Restricted View" does not show up on the sharepoint site and document library that I have created, despite already populating it with data.

The screenshot one of the successful sharepoint sites that has a "Restricted View" permission level. I however cannot find it on a new sharepoint site that I have created. Can anyone advise how I can get this restricted view permission?

Answer 1

Hi Min,

Thank you for querying in this forum.

From your description, it seems that you want to share a folder with external user, and you don’t want to let them download it. So you want to set Restricted permission for them, however, you cannot find such permission in your new SharePoint site.

May I know if my understanding is right? If so, we’d give you the suggestion below to create a new permission level to check if it will help you:

You can go to Settings and click Site permissions and select Advanced permissions settings > Select Permission Levels and click Add a Permission Level > Key in the name of permission level and tick the following permissions which only allow user to view pages, list items and documents but not download. As shown below:

After creating new permission level, you can assign this permission to external users, and per our test, they can access the site contents but cannot download items. As shown below:

At the same time, for new SharePoint site, Restricted view permission will not appear, Restricted view is not a built-in permission level. It shall be a custom one and being deleted by another user in that site. So we’d still suggest you use the suggestion we provided above to create a new permission level, this is the best way to achieve your requirement.

If the scenario above is not consistent with yours, you can also post back and point that.

Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. I hope that you are keeping safe and well!

Best Regards,

Sukie

Answer 2

Hi Min,

May I know if you have seen my reply? May I know if you still need other help? If so, you can post back and we will try our best to help you.

Best Regards,

Sukie