Permission & Access Issues

How to Share a SharePoint Site with Everyone in Your Organization

Maira Mehtab Sep 22, 2026 869 views

Question details

The user needs to configure a SharePoint site so that all internal employees can access it without receiving prompts to request access for individual pages.

Product: Microsoft SharePoint
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Attempting to grant organization-wide access to a SharePoint site and its sub-pages to facilitate seamless team collaboration.
Observed behavior: Employees are unexpectedly prompted to request access when visiting individual SharePoint pages, indicating broken inheritance or restricted sharing link settings.

Before you start

Ensure you have Site Owner or Full Control administrative privileges for the SharePoint site, as standard members cannot modify site-wide permissions or visitor groups.

Solution 1Recommended

Grant Site Access to the 'Everyone except external users' Group

Use this solution to provide broad, organization-wide read access to the entire site by adding all internal employees to the Site Visitors group.

The most effective way to share a site with your entire organization without compromising security to external guests is by utilizing the built-in Microsoft 365 group named 'Everyone except external users'. By adding this group to your Site Visitors, they will automatically inherit read access to all pages that follow the site's default permissions.

Open Site Permissions

Click the gear icon (Settings) in the top-right corner of your SharePoint site and select 'Site permissions'.

Access Advanced Permissions Settings

At the bottom of the Site permissions panel, click on 'Advanced permissions settings'.

Open the Site Visitors Group

Locate and click on the '[Your Site Name] Visitors' group in the permissions list.

Add Organization Users

Click 'New' > 'Add Users'. Type 'Everyone except external users' in the text box, uncheck 'Send an email invitation' if you do not want to spam the organization, and click 'Share'.

Access Granted: All internal employees now have Read access to the site. If they still cannot access specific pages, proceed to the next solution.

Solution 2

Restore Inherited Permissions on Individual Pages

Use this method if users can access the main site but are prompted for access requests on specific pages or document libraries.

Solution 3

Verify and Update Sharing Link Settings

Check your sharing link configurations to ensure links distributed to employees are actually accessible to the organization.

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1. Open Your Document: Launch WPS Office and open the document you wish to share with your team.
2. Click Share: Click the 'Share' button located in the top right corner of the workspace.
3. Set Permissions: Select 'Anyone with the link' and choose whether they can View or Edit, then copy the link to share.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why do users still get 'Access Denied' after I shared the SharePoint site with everyone?

This typically occurs if the specific page, file, or document library has 'broken inheritance' and unique permissions. You must navigate to the specific item's Advanced Access settings and click 'Delete unique permissions' so it inherits the site's org-wide access rules.

What is the difference between 'Everyone' and 'Everyone except external users' in SharePoint?

The 'Everyone' group includes all internal employees plus any external guest users who have been invited to your Microsoft 365 tenant. 'Everyone except external users' is safer for internal company portals as it strictly limits access to internal staff only.

Can I hide certain SharePoint pages from the organization while keeping the rest of the site public?

Yes. While the site can be shared org-wide, you can navigate to the Site Pages library, manage access for the specific page you want to hide, click 'Stop Inheriting Permissions', and remove the 'Everyone except external users' group from that page.

Why are sharing link options greyed out in SharePoint?

If options like 'Anyone with the link' or 'People in your organization' are greyed out, your organization's IT Administrator has disabled these sharing permissions globally in the SharePoint Admin Center for security reasons.

Document & File Issues