Permission & Access Issues

Fix SharePoint External Folder Permissions Expiring After a Few Days

Maira Mehtab Sep 20, 2026 868 views

Question details

External users lose editing access to shared SharePoint folders after a few days, requiring the administrator to manually grant permissions repeatedly.

Product: SharePoint
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Collaborating with external users by sharing folders for ongoing project editing.
Observed behavior: The editing access granted to external users stops working automatically after several days without manual revocation.

Before you start

Ensure you have SharePoint Administrator privileges, as you will need access to the Microsoft 365 SharePoint admin center to modify organization-wide guest sharing policies.

Solution 1Recommended

Modify Guest Access Expiration in SharePoint Admin Center

Adjust the organization's sharing policies to prevent guest access links from automatically expiring after a set number of days.

By default, SharePoint administrators can set a mandatory expiration period for external sharing links to enhance security. If this is enabled, external users will systematically lose access after the specified timeframe.

Access SharePoint Admin Center

Log in to the Microsoft 365 admin center using your administrator credentials, then navigate to the SharePoint admin center from the left menu.

Navigate to Sharing Policies

In the left-hand navigation pane, expand the 'Policies' dropdown menu and click on 'Sharing'.

Adjust Link Expiration

Scroll down to 'More external sharing settings' and locate the option 'These links must expire within this many days.' Either uncheck this box entirely or increase the number of days to match your collaboration needs, then save your changes.

Policy Application Delay: Changes to organizational sharing policies may take a few hours to propagate across all SharePoint sites and active links.

Solution 2

Break and Reconfigure Permission Inheritance

Verify if the folder permissions are being overwritten by inherited settings from a parent folder or site, and break the inheritance if necessary.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I set different expiration policies for specific SharePoint sites?

Yes, while the organization-wide setting in the SharePoint admin center applies by default, administrators can configure site-level sharing settings that are more restrictive (but not less restrictive) than the organization level.

Why does the 'Anyone' link expire automatically in SharePoint?

SharePoint administrators often mandate an expiration period for 'Anyone' links to enhance organizational security. This prevents sensitive files from remaining accessible indefinitely to unknown users via an anonymous link.

Will external users be notified when their folder permissions expire?

No, SharePoint does not automatically send expiration notifications to external guests. They will simply receive an 'Access Denied' message when they attempt to open the link after the expiration date.

Does breaking permission inheritance affect other folders?

No. Breaking permission inheritance only affects the specific folder you apply it to, along with its contents (subfolders and files). The parent folder and other sibling folders will remain unaffected.

Document & File Issues