Permission & Access Issues

How to Restore SharePoint Folder Permissions or Delete a Folder

Maira Mehtab Sep 28, 2026 869 views

Question details

A SharePoint site owner needs to restore permissions or delete a folder after accidentally removing their own Full Control access.

Product: Microsoft SharePoint
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: The user is attempting to manage permissions or delete a folder but is blocked due to losing their own Full Control rights, while visitors can still view the content.
Observed behavior: The user can no longer manage folder permissions or delete the folder. Submitting access requests does not restore permission management.

Before you start

Before proceeding, identify who your organization's SharePoint site collection administrators are, as you will need their elevated administrative privileges to resolve this issue.

Solution 1Recommended

Contact a Site Collection Administrator to Restore Access or Delete

Use this solution to regain access or remove the folder by having a site collection administrator bypass the unique folder permissions.

When unique permissions are applied to a SharePoint file or folder and the owner removes their own access, standard site owners cannot recover it themselves. However, a SharePoint site collection administrator retains access to all content regardless of unique permissions.

Identify your administrator

Contact the SharePoint administrator for your organization and explain that you have locked yourself out of a folder's unique permissions.

Access SharePoint Admin Center

Ask the administrator to log into the SharePoint Admin Center and navigate to the 'Active Sites' section.

Modify Site Membership

The administrator must select the specific site where the folder is located, click on 'Membership', and then select 'Site admins'.

Assign admin rights or delete folder

The administrator can either add your account as a site collection administrator so you can adjust the folder permissions yourself, or they can navigate to the folder and directly delete it for you.

Access Requests Insufficient: Standard access requests will not restore Full Control permission management once the owner's rights are removed; administrative intervention is strictly required.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why did I lose access to a folder I created in SharePoint?

If you manually remove yourself or your permission group from the Full Control list when setting up unique permissions, you instantly lose administrative access to that folder, even if you are the site owner.

Can another standard site owner restore my SharePoint folder permissions?

No. Once unique permissions are broken and the owner is removed, only users who are explicitly designated as Site Collection Administrators can bypass the restrictions to restore access or delete the folder.

Will visitors lose access if I accidentally remove my Full Control permissions?

Not necessarily. If visitors were already granted Read or View access before you removed your own Full Control permissions, they will continue to be able to view the folder and its contents.

Document & File Issues