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Sharing with Public Groups vs. Personal Groups in Salesforce

Publish Date: Jul 3, 2026
Description

Salesforce provides two types of Groups for sharing records with multiple users: Public Groups and Personal Groups. Understanding the difference between these two group types is important for Administrators and users who configure sharing rules, because the visibility, management scope, and appropriate use cases differ significantly.

For example, if a Sales Manager needs to share Opportunity records with a regional team, a Public Group managed by an Administrator is the recommended approach. A Personal Group can only be viewed and managed by the user who created it.

Resolution

Personal Groups

Personal Groups are created and managed by individual users for their own sharing purposes. Users can manually add these groups when sharing records with others.

Only the user who created the Personal Group can view or edit it. Administrators cannot view, manage, or modify another user's Personal Groups.

Best Practice: Train users to keep Personal Groups small and limited to essential members. If broader access is needed for multiple users or teams, users should work with their Administrator to create and maintain a Public Group instead.

Public Groups

Public Groups are created and maintained by Administrators and can be used in organization-wide Sharing Rules to grant access to many records at once.

Unlike Personal Groups, Public Groups are visible and editable by Administrators. Public Groups are the recommended approach when sharing records across multiple users, departments, or teams at scale.

 

Knowledge Article Number

000382136

 
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Salesforce Help | Article