Breaking Permissions and Web Part Access

Here is a tip about how to prevent your site owner or other users who have access to add web pages from getting an access denied message when they try to edit a page.

Background
You have a site collection with a top level site that you don't want anyone to access so you remove the permissions from it. Then on your sub-sites you break inheritance so you can get the security set up the way you want.

The Issue
When users go to edit a page to do something like add a web part they are given an access denied error. You can see this even if you have "Full Control" access on the sub-site.

The Resolution
Go to the top level site and create a new Group (ex: WebPartViewers), but don't give it any access. Next, add the users or groups that you want to be able to add and remove web parts from a page. You could add "Authenticated Users", but that is probably not a good idea since you will be opening up the web part library with this change.

Now go to the Web Part Gallery by way of Site Actions --> Site Settings --> Modify All Site Settings or navigate to /_catalogs/wp/Forms/AllItems.aspx at the site collection level. Click on Settings --> Gallery Settings. Click on the "Permissions for this gallery" under the "Permissions and Management" column. If you haven't already, break the permissions so that you can add a new user to the library. Add the group that you created and give it Read access.

Now your users that have the correct permissions will be able to add web parts without getting the access denied error message!

Get to work!

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