How do I share a Sharepoint site e.g. a document library (no MS365 account or licence)?

Question

I am the new admin for a volunteer organisation. Our board members are from different businesses and not all have a MS365 account or licence.

I have created a new Site (Document library template, no MS365 licence required for guest) from within the Sharepoint Admin Centre.

From the Sharepoint Admin Centre, I am able to select the site e.g. "Document Library" and choose 'membership'.

Here I am able to add site members and it provides a list of emails based on my Outlook contacts for easy entry. No problems.

However, when I go to the Site 'Document Library" and click on the 'share' icon in the top right hand corner, I am unable to enter names and email addresses. It simply says 'no results found'.

How am I able to send an invitation/notification email to the members I've just added to this site if this 'share' function is not working?

I would upload screenshots to support the text but it keeps telling me 'file failed to upload'.

My end desired outcome is to provide external guest users access to a Document library for collaboration, without having to have a MS login or licence and without having to have 2FA as we don't work for the same organisation and can't also be available to enter authentication numbers etc. Problematic.

Look forward to any assistance. I will keep trying to upload screen shots.

Kind regards

Jeannine

Answer 1

Dear Jeannine,

Good day!!

Apologies for the inconvenience caused and please don’t worry, let’s work together on your concern and move towards a resolution path.

I understand your concern and would like to let you know that if you want to share the Document Library to users who are not part of your Office 365 organization, you need to enable the external sharing at the tenant level and site level and then add the board members personal email addresses as Guest users into your Office 365 organization, then you can use Grant Access feature for the Document Library. Here are the references:

Overview of external sharing in SharePoint and OneDrive in Microsoft 365 - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

Manage sharing settings for SharePoint and OneDrive in Microsoft 365 - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

Change the sharing settings for a site - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

Note: Please set Anyone as Sharing Settings in the SharePoint Online admin center and site level, so that you can share the content with the users who don’t even have an email address but use Copy Link feature. Reference: How Share and Copy link work in SharePoint and OneDrive | SharePoint Maven

After enabling the sharing settings, please add the users a guest users into the Office 365 organization: Quickstart: Add a guest user and send an invitation | Microsoft Learn

Now, you can follow the below steps to provide the Grant Access to the Document Library:

Open the Document Library> Settings> Library Settings> More Library Settings> Permissions for this document library> Stop Inheriting permissions> Grant Permissions> Enter the Guest User email address> Show Options> Set the permission Level> Share.

Moreover, if you don’t want to add them as guest users and you just want to share the content in your Document Library without any email address, you can use Anyone with the link can edit:

Open the Document Library> Create a Folder> Add a files or move all files into the Folder> Select the Folder> Copy Link> Anyone with the link can edit> Share the link to the board members.

If there is any misunderstanding, we are sorry and please feel free to post back and share more detailed information with some screenshot for better understanding and guiding you furhter.

Appreciate your patience and understanding. Have a great day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia

Answer 2

Dear Jeannine,

Thanks for writing back and updating us. Apologies for the delay in the response.

As per the further updates, since you mentioned the files in the folder shared is not visible to the external user, I would like to confirm whether the file inside the library is having the unique permissions because when the folder is shared to any user, the shared user should be able to see the content without any issue.

So, please right-click on the file in the folder with your user account> Manage Access> Three dots> Advanced Settings> See whether it contains the page like below:

.

If yes, the file or folder is having unique permissions and not inheriting the permissions from the folder you have shared and to confirm the permissions, in the same Advanced Settings page, please use Check Permissions feature and see whether the shared user is having the permissions on the content he/she is not able to see in the shared folder.

Moreover, if you want the username to be displayed at the Created by or Modified by or Deleted by instead Guest Contributor, and share the complete document library in the site, then we need to break the inheritance and use Grant Access feature:

For suppose if you want shared only Document Library in your SharePoint Online site, we need to follow the below steps:

Open the Document Library> Settings> More Library Settings> Permissions for this document library> Stop inheriting permission> Grant Permissions> Enter the external user email address> Give the permission level> Share.

If there is any misunderstanding or confusion, please feel free to post back to us with some more information and share the screenshot with us.

Appreciate your patience with us and have a great day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia

Answer 3

Thanks Sophia.

I tried all of your directions again with a dummy guest account.

I can seem the dummy guest as a user in the group.

I think I have the correct permission settings.

When I log in to my dummy guest account email (via an incognito window), I request access.

As admin of the Sharepoint group (another window), I accept the request.

In the dummy guest account, I can click on the 'sharepoint' link and enter my email etc to finally get access to the Sharepoint site.

This is what I see when I am granted access as the dummy guest user.

Folder is completely empty and when I click on the 9 dots in the top left banner, there are no apps shown.

As admin of this group, I can confirm that there are definitely documents in this folder when I log in as admin.

I can also see that there are 11 members added to this group, including the dummy test email.

Are there some permissions settings I am missing? As the dummy guest user, why can't I see any of the sharepoint content?

Also, as admin, I want to be able to identify when a file has been added/edited/deleted by their username or email. I don't want to just see it show up as 'guest'.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide.

Kind regards

Jeannine