ask - give access to certain subfolder in site sharepoint

Hello @nubi, 

Thank you for reaching out to the Q&A forum! 

For your situation, here are solutions you can try: 

1. Break Permission Inheritance on Folder A1: 

• You can go to folder A1 and click Manage Access =>Advanced.       
• Click Stop Inheriting Permissions and default permission if needed       
• Then re-add the guest users with Edit or Contribute permissions. 

2. Check External Sharing Settings: 

• You can go to SharePoint Admin Center => Policies => Sharing 
• You need to ensure:  

External sharing is allowed for SharePoint 

The site group_A allows sharing with authenticated guests 

For reference: Change the sharing settings for a site - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn 

Additionally, sometimes the issue is on the guest’s side. You can ask them to open the link in an incognito/private browser window. 

Please understand that our initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. If these steps don’t resolve the issue, feel free to reply, and I am still here to help figure out how to best help you.   

Look forward to hearing you!

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.     

Hello @nubi, 

Thank you for detail responding. 

Based on the screenshot you provided (Image 1), I can confirm that the folder A1 has already stopped permission inheritance; meaning it has its own unique permissions, separate from the parent folder.  

That’s the correct setup for assigning custom access to guest users. 

To proceed and fix the issue with guest access, please follow these steps: 

1. Access Full Permission Settings: 

• On the same page shown in your screenshot, you click on any group name listed in the permission list. 
• After clicking, look at the URL in your browser. You need to change the number at the end of the URL from “number” to 0, like this: 
• You press Enter to reload the page. This will open the full permission management view for the folder. 

2. Remove and Reassign Guest Permissions: 

• On the new page, you remove all existing permissions assigned to the guest user. 
• Then you go back to the folder A1 → click Advanced → Grant Permissions. 

• Enter the guest user’s email → assign the permission level as Edit or Contribute → optionally send a notification. 

Additionally, once I reviewed the flow you described earlier, I realized I’m a bit confused about this part: 

 Does this mean User1 ended up assigning two separate permissions to the guest user? 

1. Edit permission on the A1 subfolder 
2. Contribute permission on the site level, via the access request approval 

Can you please reconfirm whether both permissions were applied? 

If both permissions were granted separately, there’s a chance this could cause a conflict or confusion in SharePoint’s permission handling, especially for guest users.   

Look forward to hearing you! 

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.     

Hello @nubi, , 

Thank you for your detailed response. 

After reviewing and testing on my side, I can confirm that your current settings appear to be correctly configured. However, the issue you're experiencing may stem from a deeper problem within SharePoint, particularly related to how permissions are processed for guest users. 

I understand that explaining this kind of issue through text can be difficult to visualize, so I strongly recommend raising a support ticket via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.  

This will allow the appropriate advanced support team to investigate the issue thoroughly, including backend logs and configurations that are not visible from the user interface. 

Here are steps, you can ask you IT admin follow: 

• You can go to: Microsoft 365 Admin Center. 
• Navigate to: Support => New service request  

For reference: Get support for Microsoft 365 for business. 

• In the description, you can use the following sample: 

“Hello, 

We shared a subfolder with a guest user who received the invitation email and requested access. We approved the request via Access Requests and granted "Contribute" permission.  However, when the guest clicks the link in the email, they are redirected to request access again, creating a loop.  We have verified that the folder permissions are correctly set, the guest user exists in Azure AD, and the sharing link is of type "Specific people".  We suspect this may be a deeper issue with SharePoint's permission handling for guest users at the subfolder level.  We would like this case to be escalated to the appropriate advanced support team for further investigation.” 

Note: If you are an end- user, please contact your IT admin to follow these steps.   

I understand that raising a ticket can sometimes be inconvenient, especially if you need to contact your IT admin to do so.   

However, once the ticket opens, a technical support technician can conduct a remote session to investigate the situation, review the backend configurations, and run the necessary synchronization tools to resolve the issue. If further intervention is required, they can refer the matter to a specialized team for in-depth analysis.     

I hope you understand that as a forum moderator, I don’t have access to backend systems to help you directly, but I’ve tried my very best to support you within the limits of my role, and I truly appreciate your cooperation and understanding. 

Please know that I’m genuinely hoping your issue will be resolved as quickly as possible. If you receive any updates, please reply here.

Thank you again for raising this issue; it’s helped broaden my understanding.   

Since many users may not know how to raise a support ticket with Microsoft, if possible, you can consider marking the answer as accepted. This helps others discover not only the troubleshooting steps but also understand the importance of raising a support ticket when basic solutions aren’t enough.