In a SharePoint list that requires content approval, new and edited items wait as Pending. To approve one, select it, open the … menu in the command bar and choose Approve/Reject. A small dialog lets you set Approved, Rejected or Pending, with an optional comment.
When a SharePoint list requires approval, items wait as drafts until they're approved. Draft Item Security, in the list's Versioning settings, decides who can see those drafts in the meantime: anyone who can read the list, only people who can edit it, or only approvers and the item's author.
With content approval on, every new or edited item in a SharePoint list waits with the approval status Pending until someone allowed to approve it does. It's one setting in the list's Versioning settings, and it adds an Approval Status column that only approvers can change.
SharePoint has no switch to turn off deleting in a list. Deleting is a permission, Delete Items, and the usual level for people who work in a list, Contribute, includes it. To stop people deleting, give them a level without it: a copy of Contribute with Delete Items and Delete Versions cleared.
A SharePoint list can hide each person's items from everyone else. In the list's Advanced settings, Item-level Permissions has two choices: let people read only the items they created, and let them create items but edit only their own. Turn both on and a shared list behaves like a private one for each person.
To let a group work in one SharePoint list, and only that list, grant the group a permission level on the list itself. Grant Permissions on the list's Permissions page opens a Share dialog that defaults to Edit with an email invitation, so open Show options and change both before you share.
After a list stops inheriting permissions, it holds a copy of every group that had access to the site. To take a group's access away from just this list, tick it on the list's Permissions page and select Remove User Permissions. The group itself, and its access everywhere else, stays as it was.
Every SharePoint list starts with the same permissions as its site, and follows any change made to the site. To give one list different permissions, stop it inheriting: Stop Inheriting Permissions on the list's Permissions page. The list then keeps a copy of the site's permissions, which you can change without touching the site.
SharePoint's Contribute permission level lets people add, edit and delete list items. When they should add and edit but never delete, no built-in level fits. Make your own: copy Contribute, clear the two delete permissions, and save it under a new name.
When a group of people needs to look at a SharePoint site but not change it, give them Read. On a communication site, Share site does it in one panel: it adds the group to the site's Visitors group, which holds the Read permission level.
