The operation to break role inheritance failed because there are too many items in the folder.

Question

How do I overcome this? It's normal that for a company we have a folder with "too may items" to share within the organization.

Answer 1

Hi @Nazmi Najib, 

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

Based on my research, the error “The operation to break role inheritance failed because there are too many items in the folder” typically occurs when SharePoint or OneDrive struggles to process permission changes due to the volume of items involved. While I completely understand that having a large folder is normal for many organizations, this limitation is by design. SharePoint has thresholds for performance and security management. 

This typically happens in two situations: when breaking role inheritance on a folder with more than 100,000 items, or when a list or library exceeds the recommended limits for unique permissions. SharePoint has a soft limit of 50,000 uniquely secured items (with 5,000 as the recommended best practice), and beyond that, operations like breaking inheritance become unreliable. 

To work around this, you might consider sharing sub-folders instead of the entire folder, reducing the number of files to keep the count below 100,000, or decreasing the number of unique permissions in the list or library. These steps help ensure smoother permission management. For more details, you can refer to: 

• Fix: The operation to break role inheritance failed because there are too many items in the folder …  

Note: Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. The sites are not controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. Please make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any suggestions from the above link. 

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As a forum moderator, I hope you understand that I cannot modify or escalate product limitations directly. My goal is to clarify these details for you, provide helpful resources, and hopefully make it easier for you to work through this issue as smoothly as possible. 

If you find this answer helpful, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could mark “Accept answer” for this post. Doing so will pin the solution and make it easier for others facing the same issue to find guidance quickly. 

If you have any updates or further question, please feel free to leave a comment under this post. Thank you so much for your cooperation and patience.  

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