How to Enable External Sharing in SharePoint Online? (2024)

Introduction

SharePoint Online allows inviting external users to collaborate on sites, libraries, lists, and files. This enhances productivity when working with people outside your organization. SharePoint admins can enable and control external sharing capabilities to balance secure collaboration. This comprehensive guide will go through the steps to enable external user sharing in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.

SharePoint Online allows you to collaboratively share your content with external users such as vendors, clients, customers, consultants, etc. To enable external sharing, you should turn on external sharing both at the tenant and site collection levels, either from the Admin center or with PowerShell. Let’s see how to enable external sharing in SharePoint Online so that you can share your documents and files with people outside your organization:

External Sharing settings in SharePoint Online offer the following options:

• Only people in your organization – Disable external sharing!
• Existing guests – Allow sharing only with the external users who already exist in your organization’s directory, Microsoft Entra.
• New and existing guests – Allow external users who accept sharing invitations and sign in as authenticated users (Microsoft account or school account/work account to access shared items).
• Anyone – Allow sharing with all external collaborators, including anonymous access links.

Step 1: Enable External Sharing at the Tenant

External sharing is disabled for SharePoint? You may see an error message, “You can only share within your organization.” if the external sharing is disabled for the site. To turn on external sharing in SharePoint Online tenant, follow these steps:

1. Log in as a Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator and Open SharePoint Online Admin Center under the Microsoft 365 admin center (Typically at: https://<tenant>-admin.sharepoint.com).
2. Click on the Policies tab >> Sharing in the left navigation
3. Under “External sharing” settings, set the sharing option to “New and existing guests” for better security. You can select any appropriate organization-level sharing settings for SharePoint and Microsoft OneDrive.
4. Click on the “OK” button at the bottom to save your changes.

That’s all! External Sharing is now turned on.

External collaboration – Advanced settings

There are additional settings on the Sharing page under “More external sharing settings,” such as limiting external sharing using domains, allowing External users to accept sharing invitations using the same account that the invitations were sent to, etc. We also have “File and Folder links” permission settings. E.g., Sharing links settings default to “Specific People”, the Expiration time for “Anyone” links, default link type, etc.

We can allow external sharing in SharePoint Online using PowerShell as well. We can also set collaboration restrictions to limit sharing within specific domains. Alright, let’s see how to configure sharing capabilities in SharePoint Online using PowerShell.

For collaboration with people outside your organization, you need to share your documents and content externally. How do I enable external sharing in SharePoint Online with PowerShell? To enable external sharing in SharePoint Online, use the below PowerShell script:

#Set Admin Center URL$AdminCenterURL = "https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"#Connect to SharePoint OnlineConnect-SPOService -url $AdminCenterURL -Credential (Get-Credential)#sharepoint online enable external sharing powershellSet-SPOTenant -SharingCapability ExternalUserSharingOnly # Disabled, ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserAndGuestSharing (Anonymous sharing)

The PnP PowerShell version to set external collaboration settings would be:

#Parameters$TenantAdminURL = "https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com" #Connect to Tenant Admin SiteConnect-PnPOnline -url $TenantAdminURL -Interactive #Enable External Sharing for the Tenant to - Anyone - Anonymous usersSet-PnPTenant -SharingCapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

You can also enable external sharing settings at the tenant level. Here is how to turn ON external sharing in SharePoint Online using PowerShell:

#Load SharePoint CSOM AssembliesAdd-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.Client.Tenant.dll"#Variables for processing$AdminCenterURL="https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"$SharingCapability="ExternalUserSharingOnly" # Disabled, ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserAndGuestSharing#Get Credentials to connect$Cred = Get-Credential#Setup the Context$Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($AdminSiteURL)$Ctx.Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($Cred.Username, $Cred.Password) #Get the tenant object $Tenant = New-Object Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.TenantAdministration.Tenant($Ctx) #Set Sharing capability of the tenant$Tenant.SharingCapability= [Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.TenantManagement.SharingCapabilities]::$SharingCapability$Ctx.ExecuteQuery()Write-host "Sharing Settings updated!"

Let us set External Sharing to allow guest users and anonymous links:

#Load SharePoint CSOM AssembliesAdd-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.Client.Tenant.dll"#Parameters$AdminSiteURL="https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"$SharingCapability="ExternalUserAndGuestSharing" #File and folder links$DaysToExpire = 7 #Expiration number of days for shared files$LinkType="View" #Edit, View or None$FolderLinkType="Edit" # View or Edit or None - Edit permissions set to Folders by default#Get Credentials to connect$Cred= Get-CredentialTry { #Setup the context $Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($AdminSiteURL) $Ctx.Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($Cred.Username, $Cred.Password) #Get the Tenant $Tenant= New-Object Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.TenantAdministration.Tenant($Ctx) $Ctx.Load($Tenant) $Ctx.ExecuteQuery() #Set Tenant Sharing Settings $Tenant.SharingCapability= [Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.TenantManagement.SharingCapabilities]::$SharingCapability $Tenant.RequireAnonymousLinksExpireInDays= $DaysToExpire $Tenant.FileAnonymousLinkType=[Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.AnonymousLinkType]::$LinkType $Tenant.FolderAnonymousLinkType=[Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.AnonymousLinkType]$FolderLinkType $Ctx.ExecuteQuery() Write-host "Tenant Sharing Settings Updated Successfully!'" -f Green}Catch { write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message}

This results in the following settings in the SharePoint Online tenant.

Turning ON External sharing at the tenant level doesn’t automatically turn ON Sharing capabilities at all underlying site collections! We need to enable sharing at each SharePoint Online site collection. You can set the sharing settings for any site collection from the SharePoint Admin Center. To allow external sharing at the site collection level using the new SharePoint Online admin center, follow these steps:

1. Go to SharePoint Online Admin Center >> Click on Sites >> Active sites >> Select the desired Site collection from the list.
2. Click on the “Sharing” button >> Set the sharing settings appropriately, such as “New and existing external users”. Click on “Save” to commit your changes.

Please note that the site collection’s sharing level must be equivalent to or less permissive than your organization-level settings! E.g., If you set the tenant level settings as “Existing external users”, then the SharePoint setting can be applied to “Existing external users” or below. The above steps apply to team sites, communication sites, and classic sites in SharePoint Online.

Use this PowerShell script to activate external sharing for the SharePoint Online site level.

#Variables for Admin Center & Site Collection URL$AdminCenterURL = "https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com/"$SiteCollURL="https://crescent.sharepoint.com/Sites/Sales"#Connect to SharePoint OnlineConnect-SPOService -url $AdminCenterURL -Credential (Get-Credential)#Enable external sharing for the site collectionSet-SPOSite -Identity $SiteCollURL -SharingCapability ExternalUserSharingOnly#Other Options: Disabled, ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

To enable external sharing specific site collection in SharePoint Online, use this PnP PowerShell:

#Parameters$TenantAdminURL = "https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing"#Connect to Tenant Admin SiteConnect-PnPOnline -url $TenantAdminURL -Interactive#Enable External Sharing for Existing AD Users (Including Guest users!)Set-PnPTenantSite -Url $SiteURL -SharingCapability ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly

This script turns on external sharing in SharePoint Online and sets the sharing option as the same as the above screenshot! Running this command will enable external user and guest sharing in an SPO site collection, and you can verify that in the Admin center.

Set External Sharing Settings for All sites in the Tenant

How about applying a specific external sharing setting on all site collections in the SharePoint Online tenant?

#Parameters$AdminCenterURL="https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"$ExternalSharingSetting = "ExternalUserAndGuestSharing" #AnyoneTry { #Connect to Admin center Connect-PnPOnline -URL $AdminCenterURL -Interactive #Get all sites where the setting is different from the given parameter - Exclude Seach Center, Redirect sites, Mysite Host, App Catalog, Content Type Hub, eDiscovery and Bots $SiteCollections = Get-PnPTenantSite | Where { $_.URL -like '*/sites*' -and $_.SharingCapability -ne $ExternalSharingSetting -and $_.Template -NotIn ` ("SRCHCEN#0", "REDIRECTSITE#0", "SPSMSITEHOST#0", "APPCATALOG#0", "POINTPUBLISHINGHUB#0", "EDISC#0", "STS#-1")} #Loop through each site and enable external sharing ForEach ($Site in $SiteCollections) { #Apply External sharing setting for the site Set-PnPTenantSite -Url $Site.Url -SharingCapability $ExternalSharingSetting Write-host "External sharing Setting updated for:" $Site.URL -f Green }}Catch { Write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message}

To get the list of all SharePoint Online Sites where sharing capability has been enabled:

Get-SPOSite | Where {$_.SharingCapability -ne "Disabled"}

Here is another post to disable external sharing: SharePoint Online: PowerShell to Disable External Sharing

All right, we have enabled external sharing. How do we share the SharePoint content with an external user? Well, you can select the file or folder, click the “Share” button, and enter the external user’s email address. You can also set the permission level.

Similarly, to stop sharing a document with an external user, navigate to the location where the document is stored and click on “Manage access.” From there, you can remove the external user’s permissions or completely stop sharing the document. Related posts here:

• How to Share a Site and Invite External Users to SharePoint Online?
• How to Share a File or Folder with External Users in SharePoint Online?

Conclusion

In conclusion, enabling external sharing in SharePoint Online is a straightforward process that can be completed by navigating to the SharePoint Admin Center and adjusting the sharing settings. Additionally, by configuring external sharing settings for specific sites, administrators can have more control over how and with whom content is shared. Overall, external sharing in SharePoint Online is a powerful feature that allows organizations to collaborate and share information with partners, customers, and other external stakeholders.

Related Posts