How to give external users access to SharePoint

by Mark Crosby | Jun 5, 2018 | Office 365, SharePoint | 22 comments

Two-Minute Tip: How to give external users access to SharePoint

SharePoint is a great way to share information and collaborate with people working on a project. Adding people that are part of your organization is easy. That feature is part of the wizard that guides you through setting up a SharePoint site. But there are times when you want to work with people outside of your organization. They could be clients or subcontractors, either way, they need to be on the same page as everyone else on the project. So let’s answer the question, “How to give external users access to SharePoint?”

Follow these steps to grant guest access to an Office 365 site

Go to site’s home page. At the top of the page, to the right of the site name, you will see an icon, a number and “Members” link.

Click on the “Members” link in the upper right part of the screen. A panel will slide in on the right side of the screen with a button labelled “Add members”. Click that “Add members” button.

The panel content will update and you will be able to enter the name of a group or person in your organization. As you start typing in the box, matching names will appear and you can select on.

That is nice, but we want to add a guest user, so click on the “go to Outlook” link above the box.

That link will take you to a new page that shows the current members of the SharePoint site. That page will also have an “Add members” icon and link. Clicking on it will allow you to add new members, including guest members.

Click the “Add members” icon. On the right side of the screen, a panel with an edit box will open up. Type the email address of the guest user into the box and press Enter.

The guest user will be added to a list of new users to be added, below the edit box. A “Save” button will appear at the top of the panel and a message with a link to learn more appears at the bottom. When you have added all the quest user emails you wish to add, click the “Save” button.

While the group is being updated, the “Save” button is replaced with a spinner image and “Saving…”. It looks like this:

Once it is done updating the group, you are shown the new group member list.

That’s all you need to do to give external users access to SharePoint!

The external user experience

The people you invite will get an email message inviting them to the site. There they’ll be able to share messages and files and to coordinate group events in the SharePoint site.

The guest user will have to set up a Microsoft account if they don’t already have one. The setup screen as of the time of writing this article looked like this:

Users with existing Microsoft accounts will just need to log in.

For more information, you can read this Microsoft page or contact us with any questions you may have.

22 Comments

Jose Zaldivar on June 5, 2018 at 10:49 pm

Great tip! Do guest user count as a license? Presumably, guest users are paying for their own license to access their own O365 account.
nokia 6 mobile legends on December 24, 2019 at 7:41 am

Very nice blog post. I certainly love this
website. Stick with it!
mobile legends cheat on March 2, 2020 at 7:14 am

You’re so interesting! I do not believe I have read through anything like that before.
So nice to find another person with some unique thoughts on this subject matter.
Really.. many thanks for starting this up. This website is something
that is needed on the web, someone with a little originality!
Jeanna on April 28, 2020 at 11:46 am

Hi there, You’ve done an excellent job. I will definitely
digg it and personally suggest to my friends. I am confident they will be benefited from this
website.
ปั้มไลค์ on May 16, 2020 at 2:04 pm

Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.
Carl on June 26, 2020 at 2:38 pm

We stumbled over here coming from a different web address and thought I might check things
out. I like what I see so now i am following you. Look forward to
looking into your web page repeatedly.
watch on June 28, 2020 at 9:50 am

Very good article. I’m facing many of these issues as well..
financial accounting, on July 4, 2020 at 3:45 pm

I really love your website.. Very nice colors & theme. Did you make this amazing site yourself? Please reply back as I’m trying to create my own blog and want to learn where you got this from or just what the theme is named. Many thanks!
vietnam soup noodle on July 28, 2020 at 11:51 am

I’m not that much of a online reader to be honest but your
sites really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your site to come back later on. Many thanks
website host on August 7, 2020 at 5:30 pm

Thanks for sharing your info. I really appreciate your
efforts and I will be waiting for your next post thanks once again.
website hosting on August 7, 2020 at 9:52 pm

Hey very nice blog!
adreamoftrains web hosting sites on August 8, 2020 at 1:21 am

Thank you a bunch for sharing this with all folks you really understand what you are talking about!
Bookmarked. Please additionally seek advice from my site =).
We can have a hyperlink alternate agreement between us adreamoftrains website
hosting services
web hosting company on August 8, 2020 at 1:53 am

Hi, I do believe this is a great blog. I stumbledupon it 😉 I’m going to revisit yet again since i have
bookmarked it. Money and freedom is the greatest
way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people.
web hosting companies on August 8, 2020 at 8:51 am

I visited many web sites but the audio quality for
audio songs existing at this web page is genuinely marvelous.
web hosting service on August 8, 2020 at 3:46 pm

Remarkable! Its actually awesome paragraph, I have got much clear idea on the
topic of from this post.
website hosting on August 8, 2020 at 6:05 pm

We absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post’s to
be what precisely I’m looking for. can you offer guest writers to write content available for you?
I wouldn’t mind composing a post or elaborating on a number of the subjects you write with regards to here.

Again, awesome blog!
adreamoftrains webhosting on August 8, 2020 at 11:11 pm

It’s remarkable to visit this web site and reading the views of all
colleagues about this article, while I am also eager of getting knowledge.
adreamoftrains web hosting service
Celena Petroske on August 19, 2020 at 8:43 pm

I think that is among the so much significant information for me.And i am satisfied reading youur article. But wannaa statement on some normal things, The website taste iswonderful, the articles is really xcellent : D. Good job, cheers
Georgianna on September 13, 2020 at 11:43 pm

Hi to every one, for the reason that I am genuinely eager of reading this webpage’s post to be updated
on a regular basis. It contains nice material.
sites on November 6, 2020 at 2:18 am

It’s actually a nice and helpful piece of info. I am happy that you simply shared this useful information with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
informative post electrician on November 16, 2020 at 3:57 am

Just about all of what you point out is supprisingly accurate and that makes me ponder the reason why I had not looked at this with this light before. Your article really did switch the light on for me personally as far as this particular subject goes. But there is actually one factor I am not too cozy with and while I try to reconcile that with the central theme of your position, permit me see exactly what the rest of the visitors have to say.Nicely done.
Lovie on August 30, 2021 at 2:24 pm

Thankfulness to my father who informed me about this weblog, this
blog is actually awesome.