One of the key features of SharePoint Online is the ability to create and manage lists, which can be used to store and organize information such as tasks, contacts, and issues. However, sometimes there is a need to restrict access to certain items within a list, and this is where SharePoint Online List Item level permissions come in.
List Item level permissions in SharePoint Online allow you to control who can view, edit, and delete individual items within a list. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with sensitive information or when different teams need access to specific items within a list. By setting up List Item level permissions, you can ensure that only the appropriate people have access to the data they need.
In this article, we will explore the benefits of SharePoint Online List Item level permissions and how to set up item-level permissions in the SharePoint Online list.
SharePoint Online List Item level permissions
SharePoint Online List Item level permissions offer several benefits that make it a valuable feature for organizations. Here are some of the advantages of using List Item level permissions in SharePoint Online:
- Improved Security: List Item level permissions provide an additional layer of security for your data by allowing you to control who can access individual items within a list. This ensures that sensitive information is only visible to authorized users, reducing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access.
- Enhanced Collaboration: SharePoint Online List Item level permissions enable different teams and individuals to work together on a single list, without compromising the security of the data. This feature allows for more effective collaboration and ensures that the right people have access to the right information at the right time.
- Greater Control: List Item level permissions provide greater control over who can perform certain actions on individual items within a list. For example, you can give read-only access to some users, while allowing others to edit or delete items. This level of control ensures that the right people have the appropriate level of access to the data they need.
- Increased Efficiency: SharePoint Online List Item level permissions can help streamline business processes by ensuring that only the relevant people have access to the data they need. This reduces the time spent searching for information and improves the overall efficiency of the organization.
Overall, SharePoint Online List Item level permissions offer a range of benefits that can help organizations to improve data security, collaboration, control, and efficiency. By using this feature, organizations can better manage their data, reduce the risk of data breaches, and improve overall productivity.
Set up item level permission in SharePoint Online list item
By using SharePoint Online list item-level permissions, it allows users to edit personal views, manage items, delete, update, modify, and add user information, etc. In SharePoint Online List, As a Site Owner or Site administrator can change the List item-level permissions. So that the right people can access the data they need to access.
In our SharePoint Online custom list. By default, Item-level permissions settings are:
- Read all items – The user who has access to the list can view all items in the SharePoint custom list.
- Create and edit all items – The user who has access to the list can create items and edit all items in the SharePoint custom list.

When we want to restrict all items in a SharePoint custom list either with Read or Edit access to who created that item, we can customize Item-level permission settings in SharePoint Online custom list.
How to enable item-level permissions in SharePoint Online custom list?
In this section, we will discuss how to enable item-level permissions in SharePoint Online custom list. For this follows the below steps such as:
- In our SharePoint Online custom list (Ex: Furniture Types). Navigate to Settings or the Gear icon and then select List settings like below.

- On the SharePoint list settings page, select Advanced settings.

- It will provide Item-level Permissions(Specify which items users can read and edit) like the below:

- Here, we can change the above Item-Level Permissions settings as per our requirement such as:
- Read items that were created by the user – When we set this option, users will only get to see items they created. They don’t see others’ entries. The list views show only items created by the user.
- Create items and edit items that were created by the user – Here, we can set this option, the users will be able to create list items, but the users can able to edit items they created. For suppose, a user can try to edit items created by other users, but they’ll get an Error like “Sorry, you don’t have access”.
- Then, click on the Ok button. it will replace our previous default list of item-level permissions.

This is how to enable item-level permissions in SharePoint Online custom list.
How to manage item-level permissions in SharePoint list permission page?
Similarly, here we will discuss how to manage item-level permissions in the SharePoint list permission page. To get this follow the below steps such as:
- In our SharePoint Online custom list(Ex: Furniture Types), click on the Command bar(…) and then select Manage access for list item-level permissions.

- Here, Manage Access can provide Links to give access, Direct access, and Advanced permission settings.
- Now, select the Advanced option like below:

- Open the Advanced permission and select the option Stop Inheriting Permissions to break permissions inheritance from the parent (Furniture Types).
- For suppose, we can’t break permissions inheritance from the parent (Furniture Types). Here, we can see the following statement (This list item inherits permissions from its parent (Furniture Types)).

- After breaking permission inheritance in the SharePoint Online list, we got the option to Grant permissions for list items.

- Click on Grant permissions, here we can invite people or a group with their’s names or email address for sharing the custom list item and include a personal message with an invitation(Optional).
- Now we can also select permission levels like Full control, Design, Edit, Contribute, Read, and View.
- Full control: Users can manage a custom list with full control.
- Design: Users can view, add, update, delete, approve, and customize the custom list.
- Edit: The user can add, edit and delete lists; can view, add, update, and delete list items and documents.
- Contribute: Users can view, add, update, and delete list items and documents.
- Read: Users can view pages and list items and download documents.
- View: Users can view pages, list items, and documents. Documents can be viewed in the browser but not downloaded.
- But, here we can see that Edit permission is granted to the permission level by default.

This is how to manage item-level permissions in the SharePoint list permission page.
How to remove SharePoint list item-level permissions?
Likewise, here we will discuss how to remove SharePoint list item-level permissions. For this follows the below steps such as:
- In the SharePoint list permissions page, select the checkbox to remove item-level permissions to the name of the user or group.
- Now, we select Remove user permissions at the top of the permission page.

- Once, we selected Remove user permissions. It will give a pop-up message that you are about to remove all permissions for the following user or group.
- Next click on the Ok button and user permissions will be deleted from the SharePoint list of item-level permissions.

This is how to remove SharePoint list item-level permissions.
Conclusion
SharePoint Online List Item level permissions are a powerful feature that can help organizations better manage their data and improve collaboration. By allowing you to control who can view, edit, and delete individual items within a list, List Item level permissions provide an added layer of security that can help reduce the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access. By using this feature, organizations can ensure that the right people have access to the right data.
We discussed, how to enable item-level permission in SharePoint Online list.
You may like the following SharePoint Online list tutorials:
- SharePoint list conditional formatting based on a date
- Add Discussion Board to SharePoint Online
- How to Add Comments to SharePoint Online List Item?
- SharePoint Online List View
Bijay Kumar Sahoo is a highly accomplished professional with over 15 years of experience in the field of SharePoint and related technologies. He has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) more than 9 times, starting from April 2014, for his exceptional contributions to the SharePoint community. Bijay is also a prolific author, having written two books on SharePoint – “Microsoft Power Platform – A Deep Dive” and “SharePoint Online Modern Experience Practical Guide“. His deep insights into SharePoint are also shared on his popular YouTube channel EnjoySharePoint where he teaches SharePoint to a global audience (From various countries like the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc). Read more…