How to Check SharePoint Site Access Permissions to Users and Groups

Megha Sharma
Megha Sharma linkedin | Updated On - December 08, 2022 |

Read time 5 minutes

SharePoint Online administrators can allow or restrict users from accessing any site according to the job requirements and responsibilities of the users. Also, they can control the level of access and the actions that can be performed by the user. According to this, there are different permission levels a user/group can have in SharePoint.

SharePoint Online Permission Levels

Some of the important SharePoint Permission levels are:

  • Full Control – All SharePoint permissions (by default, Owners Group has this permission).
  • Edit – Add, edit/update, delete sites, list items, or documents (by default, Members Group has this permission).
  • Contribute – View, add, Checking SharePoint Online User/Group Permission
    update, and delete documents/list items
  • Read – View and download items/pages in lists/document libraries
  • View Only – View pages/items/documents, but without downloading
How to check site access permissions in SharePoint Online

Using the SharePoint Online admin center, it is quite easy to check the assigned permissions the users and groups have on SharePoint Online sites.

Note: This applies to the SharePoint Server 2013 and later versions.

You just need to follow the provided steps for performing this task.

  1. Go to https://www.office.com/?auth=2 and select the SharePoint tile. Then, log in with the administrator credentials.
  2. Then go to Active Sites and click on the URL of the desired active site.
  3. Click the Site Contents option from the left panel on the opened SharePoint site.
  4. Next, click on Site Settings on the top of the page.
    Active Sites
  5. Now, under the Users and Permissions section, click Site permissions.
    Users and Permissions section
  6. The SharePoint Permissions page will get opened. Here, you can perform multiple actions like editing the user permissions.
    • Grant Permissions: To grant permissions to a user or group.
    • Create Group: To create a SharePoint group, add members to it, and assign desired permissions.
    • Remove User Permissions: To remove the permissions assigned to the selected SharePoint user or group.
    • Edit User Permissions: To modify the permissions assigned to the added SharePoint Online group.

    Edit User Permissions

  7. Just select the desired permission and click OK.
    select the desired permission
  • Benefits
    You can still view a user’s access/permissions regardless of whether they were added directly to the site, are a member of SharePoint, or are a member of an Active Directory Group.
  • Drawbacks
    This method’s primary drawback is that it only displays access to one site at a time. Therefore, you must repeat the process for more sites if you wish to check user access on a few.

Read Also: How to Add User to Microsoft SharePoint Site 2019/2016?

Checking SharePoint Online User/Group Permission

To check what all permissions are assigned on the SharePoint site, click on the Check Permissions on the top of the SharePoint Permissions page. It will open the Check Permissions dialogue box.
SharePoint Permissions
You first need to search and add the desired users or groups in the selected SharePoint site whose permission you want to check.
search and add the desired users or groups
After adding the desired user/group, click on Check Now option to provide the permissions to that added user/groups.
desired user/group
Here, you would find the permission level and other details associated to the SharePoint user or group.

Note: While checking access permissions for users, it displays permissions for one site at a time for the selected user and while checking for groups, it displays permissions for all sites in the selected group under one site collection at a time.

So, this is how you can get information about the permissions assigned to the user or group.

  • Benefits
    The method gives you a complete list of the websites that are accessible to the given SharePoint group. So, the process does not need to be repeated on each site independently.
  • Drawbacks

    User members of the SharePoint Security group are the only ones who may use it. If you choose to forego recommended practices and directly add users to the site, this is less of a limitation and more of a reality.

    The method displays only the sites that belong to a specific site collection. Repeat the procedure for every distinct site collection.

Can SharePoint permissions be migrated?

During migrations, organizations prefer to migrate the assigned permissions along with the data to avoid complexities. Our tool, the Kernel Migrator for SharePoint performs this for you. It efficiently migrates SharePoint sites, lists, libraries, etc. to SharePoint Online along with all the permissions assigned to site users or groups. SharePoint Migration tool also supports File system to SharePoint, Google Drive to Google Drive, One Drive to One Drive migrations as well in minimum time with full accuracy. Thus, you got the best solution to migrate SharePoint permissions easily.

Summing Up

By going through the blog, you will get some simple ways to check SharePoint Site access permissions of users and groups. In addition, you will learn about the types of permissions and the ways to assign it. Also for the SharePoint Online migrations, a perfect tool for migrating permissions along with data is also mentioned towards the end of the blog.

Kernel Migrator for SharePoint