Lock and unlock sites

With permissions of a SharePoint Administrator or more in Microsoft 365, you can block access to a site or make a site read-only by using Microsoft PowerShell to change the lock state of the site.

Change the lock state for a site

Follow these steps to change the lock state for a site by using PowerShell.

1. Download the latest SharePoint Online Management Shell.

   Note

   If you installed a previous version of the SharePoint Online Management Shell, go to Add or remove programs and uninstall "SharePoint Online Management Shell."

2. Connect to SharePoint as a SharePoint Administrator in Microsoft 365. To learn how, see Getting started with SharePoint Online Management Shell.

3. At the PowerShell command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

   Set-SPOSite -Identity "<SiteURL>" -LockState "<State>"
   

   Where:
   SiteURL is the URL of the site that you want to lock or unlock and State is one of the following values:

   • Unlock to unlock the site and make it available to users.
   • ReadOnly to prevent users from adding, updating, or deleting content. A message appears on the site stating that the site is under maintenance and is read-only.
   • NoAccess to prevent users from accessing the site and its content. If you provided a NoAccessRedirectUrl value for your organization (below), traffic is redirected to the URL you specified. If you haven't set this URL, a 403 error is displayed.

   Note

   If the site was closed and made read-only through a site closure policy, the PowerShell command to unlock the site won't work.

   Set-SPOTenant -NoAccessRedirectUrl 'https://www.contoso.com'
   

For more info about the LockState parameter, see Set-SPOSite. For more info about the NoAccessRedirectUrl parameter, see Set-SPOTenant.