How limited are the permissions in SharePoint?
In this guide, let’s talk about the main limitations of permissions in SharePoint Online.
Let’s get started.
1. Unique Permissions Threshold
If you want to maintain a secure and efficient SharePoint environment, you need to know how to manage permissions.
Let’s start with the so-called “unique permissions”:
What are unique permissions in lists and libraries?
Permissions are inherited from parent sites to their subsites, lists, libraries, and items by default (hence the name).
However, there are certain scenarios where specific content requires restricted access that’s different from its parent.
This is where unique permissions break in, where you need to break the inheritance of the content from the parent.
For that, you need to get into the advanced permissions page of the item where you can modify the permissions.
This is ideal for sensitive documents or confidential folders that need restricted access within a broader environment.
Recommended Limit and Supported Maximum
Technically, you can create thousands of unique permissions per list or library, but you need to be careful in their management.
At the very least, there are specific guidelines on the number of unique permissions that can be assigned:
- The recommended limit is 5,000 unique permissions per list or library
- The maximum supported limit is 50,000 unique permissions per list or library
However, while SPO supports up to 50,000 unique permissions per list or library, you must keep them below 5,000.
For example, you can instead organize the content into multiple document libraries or lists or distribute permissions.
What happens when the limits are exceeded?
Now what happens if you can’t keep it at the limit?
There are a few things that can happen:
- Slower page load times
- Increase latency
- Complicated administration and auditing
If this is already happening now, I suggest you delete the unique permissions and start anew.
If you already have more than 100,000 items in the list or library, you won’t be able to reestablish permission inheritance.
Before you get to that point, make sure to regularly review and consolidate the permissions while it’s easy to do so.
2. Permission Inheritance Challenges
There are also challenges when it comes to breaking permission inheritance.
What’s the default behavior of permission inheritance?
Permission inheritance works like this:
- There’s automatic propagation of permissions from the site level down to items.
- Changes made to parent permissions reflect across all child elements.
- This brings in uniform permission settings throughout the site collection.
When you grant a user access to a site, they inherit permissions to all content within that site (lists, pages, items, etc.)
This actually makes permission management easy as administrators can set permissions at the top level.
Complexity and Management Difficulties
You can already see where this is going, as breaking permission inheritance can lead to increased complexity.
At the very least:
- There will be numerous items with a fragment security structure
- It will require continuous oversight
- This leads to potential inconsistencies and errors
Anyway, once the permission inheritance is broken at multiple levels, the result is a complex web of unique permissions.
We’re talking here about unique inheritance on the site, document libraries, folders, or even individual items.
Administrators will then have a hard time maintaining a clear overview of who has access to what, which is a security risk.
Not to mention, it also adds a significant admin effort to meticulously track and update these changes (if still possible).
3. Difficulties in Tracking and Auditing Permissions
To continue the point earlier about tracking and auditing these permissions, there are certain challenges here.
To name a few:
- Intricate permission settings can obscure who has access to what
- Hidden or misconfigured permissions
- Potential unauthorized data exposure and threats
Did you know that it’s a hassle to check all the permissions on one site alone?
That’s because the only way to get the site permissions report is through PowerShell, and it’s not exhaustive either.
You can also check the admin center, or simply use a third-party permissions tool for SharePoint with more features.
But if you stick with built-in features, then it will be hard to maintain a clear overview of user access on the sites.
Auditing such environments becomes cumbersome as each unique permission must be individually assessed if still needed.
Overcoming These Permission Limitations
If you want to avoid these limitations and the challenges they bring, I recommend 3 strategies you can follow:
- Use SharePoint groups
- Maintain permission inheritance when possible
- Implement the principle of least privilege
SharePoint groups are the best thing you can do to manage access more efficiently and reduce the admin burden.
As for maintaining permission inheritance, when you can, don’t break it and maintain a good permission structure.
Do you have any questions about the permission limitations I mentioned? Let me know below.
For any business-related queries or concerns, contact me through the contact form. I always reply. 
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