How to Change SharePoint Site From Private to Public (2025)

Last Updated on July 16, 2024

Want to change the site’s privacy settings?

In this guide, I will walk you through the steps of changing a site’s privacy settings from private to public.

Let’s get started.

Table of Contents:

What are SharePoint site privacy settings?

In SharePoint Online, there are two main privacy settings for sites:

These settings control who can access and interact with your SharePoint Online site.

In addition, you can see these choices right away when creating a modern team site.

From the name itself, private sites are accessible only to designated members.

On the other hand, public sites are accessible to everyone within your organization.

But sometimes, you may have to change a private site to a public site for reasons like:

For example, a team working on a confidential project might use a private site initially.

However, after the project is completed, the site can be made public to share outcomes with the organization.

Sign up for exclusive updates, tips, and strategies

Follow these steps:

Navigate to the target team site.

Once you’re there, click the gear icon on the upper right corner and then the site information item:

This will show the site information in the right pane.

Click on the privacy settings field and choose the public option.

Don’t forget to save the changes.

After doing the change, verify with others if the effect has taken place.

You might be surprised why you won’t see privacy settings on communications sites.

Well, that’s because communication sites are private by default, and you have to manually change it to public.

Like this:

That’s the easiest method.

But you can also go through the site permissions and manually add everyone except external users here.

Like this:

Nice! 🙂

Anyway, got any questions about changing a site’s privacy settings from private to public? Let me know.

For any business-related queries or concerns, contact me through the contact form. I always reply. 🙂