How to Hide SharePoint Lists with Power Automate (No PowerShell)

By João Ferreira May 26, 2025 Power Automate 0 Comments

I ran into this annoying problem the other day. I had an Apps list that looked great on the landing page, but I didn’t want users accidentally stumbling into it through Site Contents. It’s like having a perfectly organized storefront while your messy stockroom door is wide open.

I needed the list visible on the page but hidden from Site Contents. The usual approach would be PowerShell, but honestly, I didn’t want to be bottle neck delaying projects every time someone needs to hide or show a list.

Here’s what I came up with instead.

The Basic Idea

Create a simple control list where users can toggle visibility themselves. Hook it up to Power Automate, and boom – self-service list management. No more bothering the admin every time someone wants to hide a list.

The list stays accessible if you have the direct URL, which is exactly what we want for web parts and embedded content.

Step 1: Create the Control List

Make a new SharePoint list with these columns:

• Title (Single line of text) – Name of the list you want to hide
• Site Address (Single line of text) – Where the list lives
• Visibility (Choice) – “Visible” or “Hidden”

Make them all required. Trust me on this one – you don’t want people leaving fields blank and breaking your flow.

Step 2: Build the Power Automate Flow

Here’s where it gets interesting. Create a new automated flow:

Trigger: When an item is created or modified (connect to your control list)

Next steps:

1. Initialize a boolean variable called “List Visibility”
   

   

2. Add a condition: If Visibility equals “Hidden”
• True path: Set variable to true
• False path: Set variable to false



3. Add “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint”

For the HTTP request:

• Site Address: Use the Site Address column from your list
• Method: PATCH
• Uri: _api/web/Lists/getbytitle(‘Title’) (use the Title column value)
• Headers:
• X-HTTP-Method: MERGE
• If-Match: *
• Body:

• {
  'Hidden':'Visibility' 
  }

Important: Use the lightning bolt to select dynamic values. Don’t type them manually.

How It Works

Add an item to your control list, set the visibility to “Hidden”, and save. The flow runs and hides the list from Site Contents. The list is still there, still accessible via URL, but users won’t stumble across it anymore.

• Hidden: True = List disappears from Site Contents
  Hidden: False = List shows up normally

The Catch with Web Parts

Here’s something I learned in the process. When you hide a list, it won’t show up in the Lists web part dropdown anymore. But there’s a workaround:

1. Set up your web part with the list before hiding it
2. Make sure everything looks right on your page
3. Then hide the list using your control list
4. The web part keeps working even though the list is hidden

This way your page displays perfectly, but only people with the direct URL can access the raw list data.

Things to Watch Out For

• You need access to all the sites in your control list, otherwise the flow fails
• All changes happen under your user account
• Test this in a dev environment first

Conclusion

This isn’t the most elegant solution in the world, but it works. The best part? Once it’s set up, it just runs. No maintenance, no constant questions, no PowerShell scripts to remember.

What’s Next?

I’m thinking about adding some approval workflows to this – maybe require manager approval before hiding certain lists.

If you want to see another approach like this, I wrote about copying pages between sites using a similar method: How to copy pages between SharePoint sites using Microsoft Lists and Power Automate

Have you tried something like this? What other SharePoint tasks are you doing manually that could use this kind of automation? Let me know in the comments.