In SharePoint Online, the Site Pages library stores modern site pages, and permissions for these pages that can be managed at the individual page level using the advanced permissions option. This allows administrators or owners to break permission inheritance from the parent Site Pages library and assign unique access rights to specific pages, overriding the Site Pages library's default permissions. To use this option:
- Navigate to the Site Pages library (via Site contents > Site Pages).
- Select the desired page.
- Click the ellipsis (...) menu, then select Manage access.
- In the Manage access panel, click Advanced at the bottom.
- This opens the advanced permissions page for that specific page, where you can:
- Stop inheriting permissions from the Site Pages library by clicking Stop Inheriting Permissions (this creates a copy of the inherited permissions as a starting point for customization).
- Grant, edit, or remove permissions for users, Microsoft 365 groups, or security groups by selecting options like Grant Permissions (to add new access), Edit User Permissions (to modify levels such as Read, Edit, or Contribute), or Remove User Permissions.
- Restore inheritance if needed by clicking Delete unique permissions, which reverts the page to match the library's permissions.
This approach is useful for scenarios such as restricting sensitive pages to certain users without affecting the entire library, but it should be used sparingly to avoid complexity in permission management.
The exceptions panel refers to a dialog box that appears in the context of the Site Pages library's overall permissions page, highlighting pages (or other items) that have broken inheritance and thus do not match the library's permissions.
To access and view the exceptions panel:
- Go to the Site Pages library.
- Click the gear icon > Library settings.
- Under Permissions and Management, select Permissions for this document library.
- On this page, if any pages have unique permissions (e.g., due to prior sharing or manual changes), a yellow banner or message appears at the top stating: "Some items of this list may have unique permissions which are not controlled from this page. Show these items."
- Clicking Show these items opens the Exceptions dialog box, which lists the names of the affected pages (along with other items if applicable), their paths, and options for owners to manage permissions directly for each one (e.g., by clicking Manage permissions next to an item). This panel helps identify and resolve permission inconsistencies without manually checking each page