You click Share on an important file for the third time because you can no longer remember which of the earlier links is still valid or who actually has access through it. A colleague received one link last week, the external consultant got a different one the day before yesterday and somewhere in between someone else may still have editing rights you have completely forgotten about. Until now, every new click on Share created another link with its own permissions, while the old links kept quietly working in the background. Microsoft is now clearing up exactly this mess with what it calls the hero link. Every file and folder in OneDrive and SharePoint gets just one single, permanent sharing link that you update instead of replacing. The rollout starts worldwide from mid-September 2026. Here is what actually changes for you as a user and how best to prepare for it.
Step 1: What the hero link actually changes
Until now, every time you shared something you basically had to decide from scratch who the link should work for: only specific people, everyone in the organisation or anyone who has the link. Each answer created its own link with its own permissions, buried somewhere deep in the file and barely possible to track cleanly afterwards. The hero link turns this principle around. Every file and folder gets exactly one primary link that always sits in the same place in the sharing dialog, whether you copy it, send it by email or open it directly through the browser address. If you later change who the link works for, you update that same link instead of creating a new one and redistributing it. If a colleague tells you she cannot open the file, it is enough to widen access on the existing hero link instead of sending a second one after it. Worth knowing: adding individual people directly to a file remains unchanged as the simplest way to share and works exactly as before.
Step 2: Secure by default instead of open by default
The hero link is set by default to Only people added. That means the link on its own does not grant access to anyone until you actively add someone. Only when you choose to do so do you widen the circle to People in your organisation or, where your organisation's policy allows it, to Anyone with the link. You also decide separately whether recipients can only view the file, edit it or view it without the option to download it. These three levels replace what used to be a fairly confusing list of sharing options with a single, clearly visible switch. 🔒 This cautious default applies automatically to newly created files and folders, so you do not need to configure anything extra to stop your content from accidentally being shared too openly. For you as a user, that mainly means one thing: you can see at a glance how openly a file is currently shared, instead of clicking through several submenus.
Step 3: Using the new sharing dialog day to day
Once the hero link is live for you, sharing something takes only a few steps.
Here is how it works:
- Open a file or folder in OneDrive, SharePoint or directly in Word, Excel or PowerPoint, for example through microsoft365.com.
- Click Share as usual.
- The very first time you open it, Microsoft shows you a short walkthrough of the new sharing experience, which will not appear again after that.
- In the dialog, choose who gets access through the hero link and with which permission.
- Add individual people directly as well, if only they should have access, independent of the hero link.
- Change who the link works for at any later point through the same dialog, without creating a new link.
In everyday use, the process itself changes surprisingly little. What improves is simply how clean and traceable the result behind it becomes.
Step 4: Keeping an eye on old links and admin settings
Existing sharing links do not simply disappear with this change. They keep working exactly as before and now appear in the sharing dialog under a section called Other links, so you do not need to set up any of your existing shares again. Administrators get an extra control on top of that: the DefaultMainLinkScope parameter in SharePoint PowerShell lets you set the default audience for the hero link per site or OneDrive account, with OnlyPeopleAdded as the default value or Organization for a more open starting point. There is currently no single tenant-wide switch that covers every site at once, so each site keeps its own default. A sensible approach is to leave sites with sensitive contract or HR data on OnlyPeopleAdded and only move more open project or marketing sites to Organization. Anyone responsible for several teams in IT is best off planning this step calmly before the rollout, rather than following up once it is already live.
Step 5: Getting effective permissions right
One point tends to cause the most confusion in my consulting work: actual access to a file never comes from the hero link alone, it always comes from the most generous combination of several layers. That includes permissions granted directly, permissions inherited from a parent folder, group membership and the hero link itself. So if you want to check who really has access to an important file, it is worth looking at all four layers, not just the hero link setting. This is a particularly good moment to walk through long-standing team folders on purpose, because permissions tend to pile up quietly over months or years without anyone actively thinking about them. Give each folder just a minute of your time and you will gain a noticeably clearer picture of who in your team can actually access what.
Step 6: Getting your team and clients ready in time
Even though no action is required before the rollout, a little preparation pays off before the new dialog shows up for your team. Update your internal guide or cheat sheet on sharing files, if you have one, so the description matches the new sharing experience. Let colleagues who regularly collaborate across teams or with external partners know first, since they are the ones most likely to notice the change. It is also worth checking whether any sites need a different default audience from the rest of your organisation because of how sensitive their content is. 👥
My practical tip from consulting
One detail that almost got lost in the initial announcement: in the new sharing dialog, Copilot can create a summary of the file you are sharing on request. 📝 Whoever receives the hero link by email then sees that summary straight away and knows at a glance what the document is about before they even open it. Especially when sharing with external partners or clients, this often saves me an extra explanation in the covering email itself. Give it a try the next time you share something larger, as soon as the feature becomes visible for you.
Conclusion & CTA
The hero link turns a jumble of individual links into a single, traceable share per file that you can adjust instead of multiplying. The rollout starts worldwide from mid-September 2026 and there is nothing you need to do beforehand, other than getting familiar with the new sharing dialog now. Take ten minutes to go through your most important team folders in OneDrive or SharePoint and tidy up sharing once the new view appears for you. You can find more background in the official announcement from Microsoft. Give it a go now.
