SharePoint: How to set permission on the folder so that a member can see their documents only in the folder?

Question

Here is my requirement:

1. I want to create a folder called "My Documents".
2. This folder will share with multiple members, they have access to add, edit and view documents.
3. But the condition is that they can see their documents themselves and the document should not show to other members.

For example: Suppose user1 and user2 both have access to the folder "My Documents." If user1 creates doc1 only he can see the doc1 user2 can not see the user1's document. I mean Folder "My Documents" will be shared but space should be private.

Answer 1

In general SharePoint lists have item level permission and Document libraries don't have such facility available through UI but you can achieve this using PowerShell.

please follow : https://www.sharepointdiary.com/2014/03/set-item-level-permission-options-in-document-library.html

Note - The settings enabled through PowerShell applies to all documents inside the library not for any specific folder. And the settings are not applicable for Site owners and administrators.

Answer 2

This is not possible using the setup you have done so far. When you grant access to folder, all the files within that folder can be accessed by all users who have permissions on folder.

So, in general you have to grant unique permissions at file level instead of folder level so that other users will not have access to files.

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Beware of the SharePoint limitations related to unique permissions in library. It is recommended to design library to have as few unique permissions as possible and remain below 5,000 in total.

Source: Unique security scopes per list or library

Granting unique permissions on multiple files/folder will be problematic to manage in future.

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My recommendation:

If you are creating site/library structure from scratch, create separate document libraries (preferred) or folders for different set of users (maybe based on SharePoint/M365 groups than individual users).