How to Change SharePoint Site from Private to Public – Quick & Easy Steps!

While private SharePoint sites are useful when working on confidential projects, they often become a bottleneck when need to collaborate or share information across the organization. If you’ve found that your team or organization is struggling to access important resources, or if communication become daunting, it’s time to change SharePoint site from Private to Public. 

By default, SharePoint team sites are set to private which helps to limit access to specific users or groups. Changing a SharePoint site from private to public helps users collaborate, share, and receive information, across the organization seamlessly. Initially, you need to know how to create a SharePoint site and define the appropriate privacy settings during the creation process. In this article, we’ll explore the complete procedure of changing a SharePoint site’s privacy settings from private to public, step by step. 

To understand the pain points of the users, let’s take a look at the below user query:

If you are facing the same issue, then this guide will help you to make SharePoint site public. Before, let’s understand the reasons behind it so that you can make a clear decision about changing SharePoint site from Private to Public or not.

Why Change SharePoint Site from Private to Public?

Changing a SharePoint site from Private to Public can have significant benefits for both users and administrators. Some of the main reasons are listed below:

1. Public sites are accessible to everyone within the organization.
2. Public sites allow employees to easily find and access shared documents, news, and updates.
3. Making a site public can encourage transparency across departments.
4. Public sites allow more users to contribute, engage, and collaborate in real-time.
5. Public sites can be found more easily by users within the organization.

If these benefits align with your goals, then let’s go over the detailed steps on how to change the site’s privacy settings.

Considerations Before Making a SharePoint Site Public

Most of the users find some hassles when making SharePoint site public. To avoid those, it’s important to follow some prerequisites first, to ensure an effortless move. Here are some points to keep in mind to change SharePoint site from Private to Public efficiently:

1. If the site contains confidential data, making it public could expose that information to unauthorized users. So, don’t make SharePoint site public, until and unless the site contains general data. 
2. Check who has access and adjust permissions accordingly.
3. Decide if you want to allow sharing with external users.
4. Identify any sections that may need restricted access.
5. Make sure the site’s structure and content are relevant to all users, as Public sites can be accessible by any user including those outside the core team. 
6. Always ensure that your governance policies align with making a site public, depending on your industry.

These key prerequisites help you to get the desired results. The next step involves understanding the specific methods for making this change.

How to Change SharePoint Site from Private to Public Using the Admin Center?

SharePoint Admin Center is one of the easiest ways to make SharePoint site public. Administrators who want to control privacy settings across several websites will find this solution suitable.

Step-by-Step Process for Converting Public SharePoint Site into Private:

• Open the SharePoint site to change.
• Check the current privacy status from the upper-right corner. If it says “Private Group,” then the site is private.

• Navigate to the “Settings” option on the site’s menu and click “Site Information.

• In the dialog box that opens, scroll to the “Privacy Settings” section.

• Select the drop-down and choose the “Public” option. Finally, after selecting the Public option, click “Save” to apply the changes.

Let’s see how we can automate this process using PowerShell which will give you a complete idea of how to change SharePoint site from Private to Public.

PnP PowerShell to Make SharePoint Site Public

For those more comfortable with coding or managing larger environments through automation, PowerShell offers an automated way to change privacy settings. PnP PowerShell commands are useful when you dealing with multiple sites or bulk changes.

#PowerShell Command to Convert a Private Site to a Public

$URLofSite = "enter-your-site-url-here"

Try {

    Connect-PnPOnline -Url $URLofSite -Interactive

    $SiteInfo = Get-PnPSite -Includes GroupId

    Set-PnPMicrosoft365Group -Identity $SiteInfo.GroupID -IsPrivate:$False

    Write-host "Site's Privacy is updated successfully!" -ForegroundColor Green

} Catch {

    Write-host -ForegroundColor Red "Error occurred:" $_.Exception.Message

}

Explanation of Important Commands to make SharePoint site public:

• The Get-PnPSite command fetches site details including the Group ID needed for the next step.
• The Set-PnPMicrosoft365Group command changes the site’s privacy to the public by setting the IsPrivate parameter to False.
• “Write-host” if everything goes well, the success message will be displayed in green.

After executing this command you can easily change SharePoint site from Private to Public.

What to Do If We Need Both Public & Private Sites?

In some scenarios, organizations may need to manage both public and private SharePoint sites simultaneously. The challenge is managing different types of content. This means, sensitive or confidential data should be kept in private sites, while general information, resources, and updates are shared across a public site.

Solution: Migrate Private or Public Sites to Another Tenant

One Solution will help in this situation i.e. migrate either the private or public SharePoint site to a different tenant. This way, you can:

• Store and manage confidential data in a private site within one tenant.
• Share general or non-sensitive data in a public site on another tenant.

Separating the SharePoint sites across different tenants helps you streamline access and improve security. To do so, several solutions are available, but they are not trustworthy and require technical expertise. To address this, we made software that can make the SharePoint tenant to tenant migration process seamless and hassle-free. 

It is a reliable solution for:

• Migrating SharePoint sites between tenants (whether private or public).
• Moving content seamlessly between environments without disrupting access or functionality.

This Reliable SharePoint Online Migration Tool is recommended by many SharePoint experts and Microsoft MVPs due to its simple, intuitive modern UI and advanced features. Additionally, it generates a detailed log report after every migration which helps in post migration steps. Try it for free now, and migrate your entire organization’s data in one go.

Best Practices & Security Considerations to Change SharePoint Site from Private to Public

When a SharePoint site is made public after being private, there are security risks that you must consider. Here are some best practices to guarantee data security to make SharePoint site public procedure effortless:

• Review Permissions Regularly – After making a site public review user access to ensure only authorized personnel can edit or view information.
• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) – Enabling MFA adds an extra layer of security which makes unauthorized access more difficult.
• Implement Conditional Access Policies – Use Azure AD Conditional Access to enforce security policies that restrict access based on user location or device.

How to Make Public SharePoint Site Private?

While changing a SharePoint site from private to public will help in collaboration and transparency, due to security or privacy reasons, you might need to reverse this action. Below is a step-by-step procedure to help you easily transition from a public site to a private one:

• Open Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
• Click on Admin Centers > SharePoint. This opens the SharePoint Admin Center.
• In the SharePoint Admin Center, go to Sites > Active Sites.
• Navigate to the site to change from public to private in the list of active sites.
• Click on the site to make it private.
• On the site details page, click on Site Permissions.
• Under the Privacy Settings, two options are available: Private & Public.
• Select Private, and save changes.

That’s all! Now you have learned how to make a private SharePoint site public, or public to private.

Concluding Words!

Collaboration can be greatly improved by switching from a private to a public SharePoint site. To help with this, we provide a proper explanation of how to change SharePoint Site from Private to Public hassle-free. Additionally, we covered some best practices to make this task error-free, and efficient. Follow the described step-by-step procedure, and make SharePoint site public in a few clicks.