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Project and group visibility

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Projects and groups in GitLab can be private, internal, or public.

The visibility level of the project or group does not affect whether members of the project or group can see each other. Projects and groups are intended for collaborative work. This work is only possible if all members know about each other.

Project or group members can see all members of the project or group they belong to. Project or group members can see the origin of membership (the original project or group) of all members for the projects and groups they have access to.

Private projects and groups

For private projects, only members of the private project or group can:

  • Clone the project.
  • View the public access directory (/public).

Users with the Guest role cannot clone the project.

Private groups can have only private subgroups and projects.

NOTE: When you share a private group with another group, users who don't have access to the private group can view a list of users who have access to the inviting group through the endpoint https://gitlab.com/groups/<inviting-group-name>/-/autocomplete_sources/members. However, the name and path of the private group are masked, and the users' membership source is not displayed.

Internal projects and groups

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For internal projects, any authenticated user, including users with the Guest role, can:

  • Clone the project.
  • View the public access directory (/public).

Only internal members can view internal content.

External users cannot clone the project.

Internal groups can have internal or private subgroups and projects.

Public projects and groups

For public projects, unauthenticated users, including users with the Guest role, can:

  • Clone the project.
  • View the public access directory (/public).

Public groups can have public, internal, or private subgroups and projects.

NOTE: If an administrator restricts the Public visibility level, then the public access directory (/public) is visible only to authenticated users.

Change project visibility

You can change the visibility of a project.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have the Owner role for a project.
  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
  4. From the Project visibility dropdown list, select an option. The visibility setting for a project must be at least as restrictive as the visibility of its parent group.
  5. Select Save changes.

Change the visibility of individual features in a project

You can change the visibility of individual features in a project.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have the Owner role for the project.
  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
  4. To enable or disable a feature, turn on or turn off the feature toggle.
  5. Select Save changes.

Change group visibility

You can change the visibility of all projects in a group.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have the Owner role for a group.
  • Projects and subgroups must already have visibility settings that are at least as restrictive as the new setting of the parent group. For example, you cannot set a group to private if a project or subgroup in that group is public.
  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Naming, visibility.
  4. For Visibility level, select an option. The visibility setting for a project must be at least as restrictive as the visibility of its parent group.
  5. Select Save changes.

Restrict use of public or internal projects

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Administrators can restrict which visibility levels users can choose when they create a project or a snippet. This setting can help prevent users from publicly exposing their repositories by accident.

For more information, see Restrict visibility levels.