Global Options

Global Options configure application-wide settings that apply regardless of which project is currently loaded. Access Global Options from the Tools menu.

General

Enable automatic update checks - When enabled, Permissions Reporter checks for new versions at startup and notifies you when updates are available.
Automatically reload last saved project - Reopens the most recently used project when Permissions Reporter starts, allowing you to resume where you left off.
Apply NTFS compression to export files - Applies NTFS file system compression to exported files where supported, reducing disk space usage for large exports.
Enable automatic crash reporting - Sends anonymous crash reports to help improve Permissions Reporter. No personal or file system data is included in crash reports.
Add local and network drives to folder list when creating new projects - Automatically populates the folder list with available local drives and mapped network drives when you create a new project.
Maximum log entries - Sets the maximum number of entries retained in the in-memory event log (1-99,999). Older entries are purged when this limit is reached.

Windows Shell Context Menu

Permissions Reporter integrates with Windows Explorer, allowing you to right-click a folder and select "Permissions Reporter" to scan it directly.

When launched via context menu, load settings from project - Specifies a project file whose settings (exclusions, file report options, etc.) should be applied when launching from the context menu. Browse to select an existing project file. If not configured, context menu launches use default settings.

User Interface

Apply colors to highlight permissions levels - Colorizes permission entries in the folder tree and detail views to quickly distinguish between permission levels (e.g., Full Control, Modify, Read).
Enable tooltips - Shows informational tooltips throughout the application. Disabling this option requires an application restart to take effect.
Detail view page size - Sets the number of rows displayed per page in detail grid views (1-9,999). Larger values show more data at once but may impact rendering performance.
Detail view button count - Controls the number of numeric page buttons shown in the grid pager (1-99).

Email

Configure email settings for sending permissions reports via command line or scheduled operations.

Select a preset configuration or configure a custom SMTP server:

Custom - Manually specify your SMTP server, port, and encryption settings.
GMail - Pre-configured settings for Gmail. Requires an app password if two-factor authentication is enabled on your Google account.
Office 365 - Pre-configured settings for Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online.

Server Settings

SMTP server - The hostname or IP address of your mail server (e.g., smtp.gmail.com).
Port - The SMTP port (typically 587 for TLS, 465 for SSL, or 25 for unencrypted).
From address - Optional sender email address. Some mail servers require this to match the authenticated username.
Username - The account username for SMTP authentication.
Password - The account password or app-specific password.
Enable encryption - Enables TLS/SSL encryption for the SMTP connection. Strongly recommended for security.

Subject and Message Body

Subject - The email subject line for sent reports.
Message body - The body text of the email (max 2048 characters). Report files are sent as attachments.

Click Send test message to verify your configuration. See Email Troubleshooting for help resolving common issues.

Performance

Enable caching of account details retrieved from Active Directory - Caches security principal information (names, group memberships, etc.) in memory. Significantly improves performance for large scans with many unique accounts. Disable only in memory-constrained environments.
Resolve object state (enabled/disabled) via Active Directory - Queries Active Directory to determine if accounts are enabled or disabled. Disabled accounts can be highlighted in reports.
Enable low priority I/O mode - Runs file system operations at background priority, reducing interference with other disk activity. Useful when scanning production servers. Requires application restart.
Resolve historical SIDs - Attempts to resolve Security Identifiers (SIDs) that may have been migrated from other domains or forests using SID history attributes.
Enable LDAP referral chasing for cross-domain queries - Follows LDAP referrals when querying Active Directory across domain boundaries. Enable this in multi-domain forest environments where accounts may reside in different domains.
LDAP query timeout - Maximum time in seconds (5-300) to wait for Active Directory queries to complete. Increase this value in environments with slow or heavily loaded domain controllers.

Threading Model

Controls how many concurrent threads are used during permission scanning:

Single threaded - Uses one thread for all operations. Minimizes resource usage but is significantly slower. Use for debugging or on resource-constrained systems.
Normal multi-threaded - Balanced threading suitable for most local and network scans. Recommended for typical use.
Aggressive multi-threaded - Uses more threads for faster scanning. May increase CPU and memory usage.
Hyper-aggressive multi-threaded - Maximum parallelization. Recommended only when network latency is the primary bottleneck, such as scanning remote file servers over high-latency connections.

HTTP Proxy

Configure an HTTP proxy server for update checks and other outbound HTTP requests.

Use HTTP proxy server during update checks - Enable to route HTTP traffic through a proxy server.
Address - The fully qualified hostname or IP address of your proxy server.
Port - The proxy server port (typically 8080 or 3128).
Username / Password / Domain - Credentials for proxy authentication, if required. Leave blank for anonymous proxy access.

Documentation