External users to a SharePoint Communications site are being disabled. What should I be looking for?

Question

External users to a SharePoint Communications site are being disabled. What should I be looking for?

Peter Scott 0

I have created a Communications site on SharePoint and created a security group in MS365 - all specifically to enable external users access to news and information.

All these external users are volunteers to our organisation that sign in to a Volunteer App to log their hours and travel and detail what they communicate with their clients. As they have secure logins to that App, I have pasted the SharePoint Comms link to that App, however each user is asked to log into the SharePoint Comms site. Why as I have allowed 'Public View' to that Site.

None of these external users have a site licence to MS365/SharePoint.

Any help appreciated.

Moved from Microsoft 365 and Office | SharePoint | Development

Peter Scott 0 Reputation points

2026-05-03T07:51:44.34+00:00

All the external users do not belong to a specific organisation so I cannot enable that option. They login with their personal email addresses - eg Gmail, Outlook, yahoo etc.

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Peter Scott 0 Reputation points

2026-05-03T07:51:44.34+00:00

All the external users do not belong to a specific organisation so I cannot enable that option. They login with their personal email addresses - eg Gmail, Outlook, yahoo etc.

Answer 1

Jade Ng 11,330 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Dear @Peter Scott,

Thank you for your detailed explanation of your setup. I understand your goal is to allow volunteers to easily access your SharePoint Communication site without needing to sign in.

I’d like to clarify how SharePoint Online works in this scenario, as the behavior you’re seeing is expected rather than a misconfiguration. In SharePoint Online, even when external sharing is enabled:

Communication sites are not designed as fully public websites
Access to a SharePoint site always requires authentication (sign-in)
The “Public view” or external sharing setting means the site can be shared externally, but it does not make it openly accessible on the internet

This is because SharePoint uses secure identity Microsoft Entra ID to control and audit access.

I understand this can be a bit confusing, as the terminology may suggest broader access than what is actually available. To help clarify:

External sharing (guest access) This allows users outside your organization to access the site; however, they will still be required to sign in to verify their identity.
Anonymous access (“Anyone” link) This option allows access without requiring sign-in, but it is limited to specific files or folders rather than the entire site.

Please note that SharePoint Online does not support fully anonymous access to an entire site. Only individual items (such as documents or folders) can be shared without requiring users to authenticate.

For reference:

Depending on your goal, here are the supported approaches:

Option 1. Continue using SharePoint with guest access

Add volunteers as guest users
Share the site or pages
Users sign in with a Microsoft account or verification code

Option 2. Share specific content anonymously

Use “Anyone with the link” for documents or pages
No sign-in required

Note: This does not provide full site navigation

Option 3. Use a public-facing website

If you need true “click-and-view” (no login at all), consider hosting the content on a public website platform
SharePoint is not intended to function as a public web portal

I hope this helps. Please feel free to reply below if you have any update or further concern.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. I appreciate your continued trust. Hope you having a nice day and really much warm regards to you as well!

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Jade Ng 11,330 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-05T01:09:47.0766667+00:00

Dear @Peter Scott,

I just wanted to check in and see if you have any updates or additional information you’d like to share regarding your situation. If there's anything new or if you need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Peter Scott 0 Reputation points

2026-05-05T02:40:46.7666667+00:00

Hi Jade,

thanks for responding and explaining.

Our volunteers are about 30 so I could add them all to Entra however that would become an overhead. It is an option.

Question: If I have the comms site set up can I create a sub site/folder that has anonymous access? Essentially I want to put pdf policy documents for them to access. These would not be appropriate on a website for public viewing.

Most of the volunteers are elderly and are not specifically IT literate, so clicking on a “Please give me access” via Microsoft would be a step some of them would not take as most are very afraid of scams.

Any further steps you can offer would be helpful.
Jade Ng 11,330 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-05T03:17:43.7066667+00:00

Dear @Peter Scott,

Thank you for your question.

I completely understand the need to keep access simple for your volunteers. Unfortunately, SharePoint does not support making a full site, subsite, or folder anonymously accessible; however, you can still achieve a similar outcome by storing your PDF documents in a library and sharing them using an “Anyone with the link” option, which allows users to view the content without signing in. This would likely be the simplest approach for your volunteers, as they can click the link directly from your app and access the documents without any authentication steps, while noting that access is limited to the shared content rather than the full site experience.

Wishing you a pleasant day!
Peter Scott 0 Reputation points

2026-05-05T12:27:29.4866667+00:00

Hi Jade,

I have tried the “library” option and it only has sharing as per the overall site. In my case it is anonymous or anyone with the link. Because I am the admin for SharePoint and the volunteer app I cannot test even with a test user (cleared cache), so I have asked some real volunteers (the more IT literate ones) to test. They are yet to get back to me.

cheers

Peter
Jade Ng 11,330 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-06T02:26:08.1266667+00:00

Dear @Peter Scott,

Thank you for the update!

Your approach is correct, and it’s expected that testing can be difficult from an admin account, as SharePoint may still enforce authentication based on existing sessions or permissions. In practice, anonymous “Anyone” links can behave differently depending on the user’s environment, which is why testing with real external users is the best validation step.

For now, I recommend waiting for feedback from your volunteers, and if they can access the PDFs without being prompted to sign in, then your configuration is working as intended.

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External users to a SharePoint Communications site are being disabled. What should I be looking for?

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