We are having issues with SharePoint access with one of our guest user. Can someone please assist us with this issue?

Question

I have attached the screenshot of the Message.

No User could not access the site in past. We have some other users in same group and only this user is having issues

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Answer 1

Hi @Mudasir Bari,  

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum. 

I understand that you are experiencing an issue where a specific guest user is encountering a "You need permission to access this site" error, despite being a member of a group that has access. 

Based on your information, this error typically occurs when SharePoint cannot validate that the guest user’s current sign-in identity matches the specific account that was granted permissions. Even if the user is part of a group, an identity mismatch or a stale entry in the site’s User Information List can prevent successful authorization. 
I recommend performing the following steps to resolve the access conflict for this individual: 

1/ Validate the Guest Sign-in identity 

• Instruct the guest to sign out of all Microsoft accounts and open the site link in an InPrivate or Incognito window.  
• They need to sign in using the exact email address that received the invitation. Access will be denied if they are logged into a different personal or work account that was not explicitly invited. 

2/ Check effective permissions  

• Navigate to the affected SharePoint site and go to Settings > Site permissions > Advanced permissions settings.  
• Click on Check Permissions, enter the guest's email address, and select Check Now. This confirms if SharePoint recognizes the user’s effective rights at the site level. 
• 

3/ Verify external sharing configurations  

• External sharing settings are enforced at both the tenant and site levels. Navigate to the SharePoint Admin Center > Policies > Sharing to ensure organization-wide sharing is permitted. 
• 
• Then, go to Sites > Active sites and verify that the specific site’s sharing policy is not more restrictive than the tenant policy, as the more restrictive setting always takes precedence. 

4/ Refresh the guest authorization flow.
If the guest has never successfully accessed the site, remove their account from the group or site permissions entirely. Afterward, send a fresh invitation. This process clears the legacy SharePoint Invitation Manager data and triggers a modern invitation flow, which is often necessary for Entra ID to sync correctly with SharePoint. 

For detailed instructions, you can follow the official article: Collaborate with guests in a site (IT Admins) | Microsoft Learn

I hope this response has helped address your concern. Please feel free to reply if you have any further questions; I would be happy to assist further.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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Answer 2

The message “You need permission to access this site” indicates that the guest account either has no permissions on the SharePoint site or its existing permissions are corrupted.

Use these steps as a site or SharePoint admin:

1. Confirm that the guest has explicit permissions
   1. Open the target SharePoint site.
   2. Check the site’s permissions (for example, Site permissions → Advanced permissions).
   3. Make sure the guest user is a member of a SharePoint group (such as Visitors, Members, or a custom group) or is granted direct access to the site, library, or file.
   4. If the user is missing, add the guest again and assign the appropriate permission level.
2. If the user already has permissions but still sees “You need permission”
   1. Remove the guest from the site collection and re‑grant access:
      • Follow the guidance in Remove the affected user from the site, then share the file, folder, or site again with the guest.
   2. If the issue continues for this guest account only, completely remove the guest and re‑invite:
      • Remove the guest account from the Microsoft 365 admin center as described in remove the guest account from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
      • Ensure the user is also removed from the site collection (UserInfo list) as described in the article about removing users from SharePoint Online.
      • After removal, send a fresh sharing invitation to the guest and have them accept it.
3. If the guest was invited via a distribution list
   • Distribution lists are not supported for assigning SharePoint permissions. Only the first guest who accepts the invitation gets access; others will see “Access Denied” or “You need permission to access this site.”
   • Instead of sharing to a distribution list, share the site or resource with:
     • A security group, or
     • A SharePoint group, or
     • A Microsoft 365 group.
   • Then add the guest user to that group.

After these steps, the guest should be able to access the site using the new invitation link.

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References:

• SharePoint invitation sent to a distribution list works for only one user
• Access Denied or You need permission errors in SharePoint Online and OneDrive
• Unable to access SharePoint Online
• Error when a guest user accepts a SharePoint Online invitation by using another account