How to Get All Expired Sharing Links in SharePoint Online

Admins can set expiration dates on sharing links to ensure that files and folders remain accessible only for a limited time. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access and strengthens overall security in SharePoint Online. Initially, expiration could be applied only to ‘Anyone’ (anonymous) links.

Currently, SharePoint Online allows setting expiration for other sharing link types, such as ‘People in your organization’ and ‘People you choose’, which provide greater control over access. The ‘Only people with existing access’ link type cannot be configured with an expiration date.

Configure expiration for sharing links in SharePoint Online

• Log in to a SharePoint Online site and navigate to the desired document library.
• Click the More actions (ellipses) option next to the desired file/folder and select Manage access.
• Go to the Links tab and select Create and share a new link. Select the sharing link type in the The link works for section.

Note: If the "Create and share new links" option is unavailable, a sharing link likely already exists. Instead, use the Share or Copy link option to create a new sharing link with expiration date.

What happens when an SPO sharing link expires?

When a sharing link reaches its predefined end date, the experience and available actions differ depending on whether you are the user trying to access the content or the site owner responsible for it.

Sharing links expiration dates help organizations balance seamless collaboration with strong data protection. It helps prevent prolonged vulnerabilities while supporting productive teamwork.

Here’s why enforcing expiration dates in Microsoft 365 is important.

‘Anyone’ links enable anonymous access, which can lead to data exposure if not time-limited. Administrators can configure expiration settings to control how long anonymous links stay active and ensure access ends automatically.

Run the cmdlet below to make sure that the sharing link expires after a number of days.

Set the expiration of 'Anyone' sharing links in the SharePoint admin center

• Log in to the SharePoint admin center and go to Policies » Sharing.
• Under the Files and folder links section, you can find the option to Choose expiration and permissions options for Anyone links.
• Select the checkbox and enter a value between 1 and 730 to set the expiration period for ‘Anyone links’ across the tenant.
• Click Save to store the changes.

Configure expiration for anonymous sharing links in PowerShell

Instead of going through multiple tabs in the SharePoint admin center, you can use a single PnP PowerShell cmdlet to set the expiration limit for “Anyone links” in SharePoint Online.

Use the cmdlet below to connect to the PnP PowerShell module with admin access. Ensure you replace <Tenant-Name> and <AppClientId> with the actual tenant name and client ID before execution.

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://<Tenant-Name>-admin.sharepoint.com" -ClientId “<AppClientId>” -Interactive

The expiry of ‘Anyone’ sharing links can be managed through the SharePoint admin center and PowerShell.

Set-PnPTenant -RequireAnonymousLinksExpireInDays <Days>

Replace <Days> with the desired period to set a tenant-wide expiration for 'Anyone' sharing links.

SharePoint Online expired sharing links may seem harmless, but if not monitored, they can expose sensitive data or be mistakenly reactivated. Proactive oversight is essential to maintain a secure and compliant sharing in Microsoft 365 environment.

Here are a few reasons why expired sharing links in SPO should be monitored.

Reasons to Monitor Expired Sharing Links in SharePoint Online

Although expired sharing links revoke access, they are not automatically removed and still appear on the links page. This often causes confusion and clutter while managing sharing links.

To keep the environment secure and organized, administrators should remove expired links in the SharePoint Online.

Remove expired SPO sharing links using the SharePoint admin center

• In the SharePoint admin center, navigate to Sites » Active sites. Then, select the required site and click View site.
• After getting redirected to the site, select Documents or any specific document library on the left-hand side pane.
• Click on More Actions(⋯) next to the particular file/folder name and select “Manage access.” In the dialog box, switch to the “Links” tab.
• Expired sharing links can be identified by the message: “This link doesn't work anymore. Remove it and create a new one”.
• Click the delete(🗑️) next to the expired links and select Remove for permanent deletion of the expired link.

Manually searching for expired sharing links and deleting them one by one is a time-consuming process in SharePoint Online. PowerShell lets you remove all sharing links that have expired for an entire site effortlessly.

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "<SiteURL>" -ClientId "<AppclientId>" -Interactive
Get-PnPList | Where-Object { $_.BaseType -eq "DocumentLibrary" -and -not $_.Hidden } | ForEach-Object {
     $lib = $_.Title
     Write-Host "Checking: $lib" -ForegroundColor Cyan
     $query = "<View Scope='RecursiveAll'><ViewFields><FieldRef Name='FileRef'/><FieldRef Name='FileLeafRef'/><FieldRef Name='FSObjType'/></ViewFields></View>"
    Get-PnPListItem -List $_ -PageSize 2000 -Query $query | ForEach-Object {
         $ref = $_["FileRef"]; $name = $_["FileLeafRef"]; $isFolder = $_["FSObjType"] -eq 1
         $links = if ($isFolder) { Get-PnPFolderSharingLink -Folder $ref } else { Get-PnPFileSharingLink -Identity $ref }
         $links | Where-Object { $_.ExpirationDateTime -is [datetime] -and $_.ExpirationDateTime -lt (Get-Date) } | ForEach-Object {
             Write-Host "Removing expired link from $name (Library: $lib)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
             if ($isFolder) {
                 Remove-PnPFolderSharingLink -Folder $ref -Identity $_.Id -Force
             } else {
                 Remove-PnPFileSharingLink -FileUrl $ref -Identity $_.Id -Force
}   }   }   }

Bulk remove expired sharing links using a PowerShell script

PnP PowerShell cmdlets allow removing expired links on a single site, but traversing multiple sites to clean them up is not practical and again becomes a time-consuming task. To address all these limitations, we have developed a PowerShell script that automates the bulk removal of expired sharing links across the entire Microsoft 365 organization.

Download and run the following script to generate a detailed report of sharing links by type (anonymous, company, specific people) or expiration status (active, expired). After reviewing the report, admins can re-run the script with removal filters to securely revoke the selected links in the Microsoft 365 environment.

Execute the script with params like -ExpiredLinks and -RemoveSharingLinks as shown below to remove all expired sharing links in the SharePoint Online environment.

  ./RemoveSharingLinks.ps1 -ExpiredLinks -RemoveSharingLinks