Skip to content
GitLab

Project and group visibility (FREE)

GitLab allows users with the Owner role to set a project's or group's visibility as:

  • Public
  • Internal
  • Private

These visibility levels affect who can see the project in the public access directory (/public for your GitLab instance). For example, https://gitlab.com/public. You can control the visibility of individual features with project feature settings.

Public projects and groups

Public projects can be cloned without any authentication over HTTPS.

They are listed in the public access directory (/public) for all users.

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

Any signed-in user has the Guest role on the repository.

NOTE: By default, /public is visible to unauthenticated users. However, if the Public visibility level is restricted, /public is visible only to signed-in users.

Internal projects and groups

Internal projects can be cloned by any signed-in user except external users.

They are also listed in the public access directory (/public), but only for signed-in users.

Internal groups can have internal or private subgroups.

Any signed-in users except external users have the Guest role on the repository.

NOTE: From July 2019, the Internal visibility setting is disabled for new projects, groups, and snippets on GitLab.com. Existing projects, groups, and snippets using the Internal visibility setting keep this setting. You can read more about the change in the relevant issue.

Private projects and groups

Private projects can only be cloned and viewed by project members (except for guests).

They appear in the public access directory (/public) for project members only.

Private groups can only have private subgroups.

Change project visibility

Prerequisite:

  • You must have the Owner role for a project.
  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
  4. Change Project visibility to either Private, Internal, or Public.
  5. Select Save changes.

Change group visibility

Prerequisite:

  • You must have the Owner role for a group.
  • Subgroups and projects must already have visibility settings that are at least as restrictive as the new setting of the parent group.
  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Groups and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Naming, visibility.
  4. Under Visibility level select either Private, Internal, or Public.
  5. Select Save changes.

Restrict use of public or internal projects (FREE SELF)

You can restrict the use of visibility levels for users when they create a project or a snippet. This is useful to prevent users from publicly exposing their repositories by accident. The restricted visibility settings do not apply to administrators.

For details, see Restricted visibility levels.