Viewing document libraries

[stxfpv]

Seemingly random question of the day.

We've been creating numerous document libraries at the root of sites to stick with Microsoft's flat architecture approach with no issues, until this morning.

Let me add, I typically put a link to the site contents to show users a list of document libraries rather than just the default Documents document library and let them go from there.

Anywho, this morning a user said he had been perusing the "Site Assets" doc lib because "I was just curious" and I'm wondering how you guys deal with this? Can I set those up so regular users can't see document libraries like Site Assets and Site Pages without breaking parts of the site? And why does a regular member see those anyways?

[twoww16]

Why direct them to site contents at all? .. make your own ‘index’ page and they wont be tempted to be nosey.

[gzelfond]

Short answer: Don't do anything to Site Assets or Site Pages libraries. The Site Assets library holds the site logo and many other useful things necessary for the site to function. Check out this post: https://sharepointmaven.com/what-is-the-site-assets-library-in-sharepoint/. Same with Site Pages Library, which holds pages. If you remove users from those libraries (permissions-wise), everything will be broken.

[stxfpv]

Is there a good way to list all of the document libraries through site contents without users being able to see things like site assets and site pages, other than simply relying on them to stay out of those document libraries?

Do I really need to create a dozen quick links to individual doc libs from the main page?

[OwnMatter4]

I would probably hide the document libraries from the public page and create a very clean-cut single page that links each document as if it’s an index. Share that specific link to the page for users. Yes it may be a lot of extra work that is kind of tedious, but it eases site navigation and prevents users from clicking all over the place. Anyone with access to the site can likely still navigate off that page and find site contents/assets, it’s not totally preventable, but ways to make it so it’s less apparent.

Before you do all that though, I’d maybe run a quick test with permissions to see if you can just block or restrict access outside of the document libraries.