When configuring external sharing for the organization, there are four levels or options that describe the permissiveness or restrictiveness of the sharing controls:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Anyone: Users can share files and folders using links that don't require sign-in. | Previously called anonymous links, this feature allows the sender to create a shareable link that any recipient can open. No authentication is required. |
| New and existing guests: Guests must sign in or provide a verification code. | When this sharing option is selected, each recipient will receive a unique invitation email that they will use to complete a signup request. This invitation will create an Azure AD security principal in the sender's tenant. Sharing recipients can be new users or existing users that have already been registered in the directory. |
| Existing guests: Only users already in your organization's directory. | When this sharing option is selected, users can only send to identities that already exist in the directory (members or guests). No new external guests can be added. |
| Only people in your organization: No external sharing allowed. | This is the most restrictive option – only tenant members can receive sharing invitations. |
To access the sharing controls for your SharePoint Online tenant organization, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the SharePoint Admin center. Go to https://admin.microsoft.com, expand Admin Centers, and select SharePoint.
- From the navigation menu, select Sharing to review the organizational sharing controls:
Notice that SharePoint and OneDrive both have sharing control settings. Since OneDrive for Business is a personalized site collection that is part of the SharePoint tenant, you cannot configure OneDrive settings that are more permissive than the SharePoint Online tenant settings. You can, however, make the OneDrive for Business settings more restrictive than SharePoint Online's tenant settings.
If you adjust the slider from Anyone to a more restrictive setting, the Anyone with a link radio button is automatically grayed out under the File and Folder links.