---
schema_version: "1"
id: 5da3e541319e5f19a047d453cb53fb3ba5dce4a9b4716247c9e4c7584a6fda85
title: Set Your External Organization-Wide Sharing Defaults
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/platform/264-0-0/security_owd_external_setting.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.security_owd_external_setting.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 9dd40b202f3259d607a9fcae4bc388688685b35027afc235d05aa81c3534d697
description: External organization-wide defaults enable you to set a different default access level for external authenticated users.
products:
  - Security
  - Salesforce Platform
release: "264"
---
# Set Your External Organization-Wide Sharing Defaults

External organization-wide defaults enable you to set a different default access level for external authenticated users.

### Required Editions

![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-access-264-0-0-production-enus/a92be132-3cbc-412a-9262-130636120c14/images/icon_note.png)

Note Where possible, we changed noninclusive terms to align with our company value of Equality. We maintained certain terms to avoid any effect on customer implementations.

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>Professional</strong>, <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Performance</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> Editions</td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small permission">
        <colgroup>
          <col style="width:50%">
          <col style="width:50%">
        </colgroup>
        <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
          <tr class="">
            <th scope="colgroup" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="text-align:center;vertical-align:top;" id="d30898e78">User Permissions
              Needed</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <tr class="">
            <td data-label="User Permissions Needed" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e78 ">To set default sharing access:</td>

            <td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e78 ">Manage Sharing</td>

          </tr>
        </tbody>
      </table>

External organization-wide defaults are automatically enabled in all orgs created in Spring ’20 or after and in all orgs where Salesforce Experiences or portals are enabled. For orgs created before Spring ’20, you can enable the external sharing model on the Sharing Settings page in Setup.

![Important](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-access-264-0-0-production-enus/a92be132-3cbc-412a-9262-130636120c14/images/icon_important.png)

Important After it’s enabled, the External Sharing Model can’t be disabled. You can still manually set **Default External Access** and **Default Internal Access** to the same access level for each object.

The default external access levels depend on when your Salesforce org was created:

- For orgs created after Spring ’20, the default external access level is set to Private for all objects.
- For orgs created before Spring ’20, the default internal access and default external access are set to the original default access level. For example, if your organization-wide default for contacts is Private, the default internal access and default external access are Private as well. The only exceptions are the access levels for User and newly created custom objects, which are set to Private by default.

To secure access to your objects, we recommend that you set your external organization-wide defaults to Private unless otherwise required by your business needs.

![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-access-264-0-0-production-enus/a92be132-3cbc-412a-9262-130636120c14/images/icon_note.png)

Note An object’s external organization-wide default must be set to Private for an external authenticated user to view the object in a report. If an object's external organization-wide default can’t be set to Private, then an external user can’t view the object in a report.

![Important](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-access-264-0-0-production-enus/a92be132-3cbc-412a-9262-130636120c14/images/icon_important.png)

Important Guest users aren't considered external users. Guest users’ org-wide defaults are set to Private for all objects, and this access level can’t be changed.

To set the external organization-wide default for an object:

1. From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Sharing Settings, and then select **Sharing Settings**.
2. Click **Edit** in the Organization-Wide Defaults area.
3. For each object, select the access level that you want to use under Default External Access.
    
    You can assign these access levels.
    
    <table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small ">
            <colgroup>
              <col style="width:44.85049833887043%">
              <col style="width:27.57475083056478%">
              <col style="width:27.57475083056478%">
            </colgroup>
            <thead class="slds-text-title_caps ">
              <tr class="">
                <th scope="col" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d30898e185">Access Level</th>
                <th scope="colgroup" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" id="d30898e188">Description</th>
              </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
              <tr class="">
                <td data-label="Access Level" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e185 ">
                  <samp class="parmname">Controlled by Parent</samp>
                </td>

                <td data-label="Description" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e188 ">
                  <p>
                    <span id="security_owd_external_setting__owd_controlled"><a name="security_owd_external_setting__owd_controlled"><!-- --></a>Users can perform actions (such as view, edit, delete)
                      on a record on the detail side of a master-detail relationship if they can
                      perform the same action on all associated master records.</span>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin-bottom:0;">The default internal and external access must match if either one is set to
                    <samp class="parmname">Controlled by Parent</samp>.
                  </p>
                </td>

              </tr>
              <tr class="">
                <td data-label="Access Level" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e185 ">
                  <samp class="parmname">Private</samp>
                </td>

                <td data-label="Description" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e188 ">
                  <span id="security_owd_external_setting__owd_private"><a name="security_owd_external_setting__owd_private"><!-- --></a>Only users who are
                    granted access by ownership, permissions, role hierarchy, manual sharing, or
                    sharing rules can access the records.</span>
                </td>

              </tr>
              <tr class="">
                <td data-label="Access Level" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e185 ">
                  <samp class="parmname">Public Read Only</samp>
                </td>

                <td data-label="Description" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e188 ">
                  <span id="security_owd_external_setting__owd_publicread"><a name="security_owd_external_setting__owd_publicread"><!-- --></a>All users can view
                    all records for the object.</span>
                </td>

              </tr>
              <tr class="">
                <td data-label="Access Level" class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e185 ">
                  <samp class="parmname">Public Read/Write</samp>
                </td>

                <td data-label="Description" class="slds-cell-wrap" colspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" headers="d30898e188 ">
                  <span id="security_owd_external_setting__owd_write"><a name="security_owd_external_setting__owd_write"><!-- --></a>All users can view and
                    edit all records for the object.</span>
                </td>

              </tr>
            </tbody>
          </table>
    
    ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-platform-access-264-0-0-production-enus/a92be132-3cbc-412a-9262-130636120c14/images/icon_note.png)
    
    Note The default external access level must be more restrictive or equal to the default internal access level. For example, you can have a custom object with default external access set to Private and default internal access set to Public Read Only.
4. Click **Save**.

You can monitor the progress of your organization-wide default updates on the Background Jobs page or view recent sharing operations on the View Setup Audit Trail page.

#### See Also

- [External Organization-Wide Defaults Overview](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=platform.security_owd_external.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "External organization-wide defaults provide separate organization-wide defaults for internal and external authenticated users to help you better secure your data.")