Share Microsoft 365 files with External Users

Owned by Dan Jakubiak
Last updated: Oct 30, 2024
1 min read

Students, faculty, and staff may share OneDrive and SharePoint files securely with people outside of the UConn community. Anyone who does not have a @uconn.edu email address is considered external; this includes UConn Health and the Foundation.

Sharing a file from a UConn account to an external account

When you share a file or folder, you have two options:

  • Directly with others (recommended): Enter the email address for the external recipient. We recommend that the recipients log in to their Microsoft accounts because it is a more streamlined and secure experience.

What if the recipient does not have a Microsoft account?

  • Anyone: This is not recommended. This option allows anyone view/edit the file without authentication (signing in). This means anyone who gets the share link can edit the data.

    • When choosing the “Anyone” option, UConn community members are given extra tools to help with security. Only when choosing “Anyone,” you may also set a password to access the data and an expiration date for the share link. After this date, or without the password, a user cannot access the data behind the share link.

For more information about sharing files, view Share Files in Microsoft 365.

Experience of External Users

To view the external user experience, visit Access a Shared File as an External User. This guide can be shared with external users to help them through the process.

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