SharePoint PowerShell Commands: SPO, PnP and Server Cheat Sheet

Most SharePoint admin work comes down to a few dozen cmdlets. The catch is that they live in two different modules, and older guides mix in SharePoint Server commands that never worked in Microsoft 365.

In this tutorial, we’ll go through the SharePoint PowerShell commands I use most, grouped by task. Use PnP PowerShell for sites, lists, files and permissions, and the SPO cmdlets for tenant-wide settings. Here’s the shortest useful start:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://spguides-admin.sharepoint.com" -ClientId "<your-app-id>" -Interactive
Get-PnPTenantSite | Select-Object Title, Url, Template

That signs you in to the admin center and lists every site in the tenant with its URL and template.

SPO cmdlets or PnP PowerShell: which should you use?

The SharePoint Online Management Shell gives you the SPO cmdlets. They cover sites, users, groups and tenant settings, but nothing inside a site: no lists, items or files.

PnP PowerShell covers both levels and runs natively in PowerShell 7. If you don’t have it yet, start with installing PnP PowerShell. Here are the SPO commands next to their PnP equivalents:

Task	SPO cmdlet	PnP cmdlet
Connect	Connect-SPOService	Connect-PnPOnline
List sites	Get-SPOSite -Limit All	Get-PnPTenantSite
Create a site	New-SPOSite	New-PnPSite, New-PnPTenantSite
Change site settings	Set-SPOSite	Set-PnPTenantSite
Delete a site	Remove-SPOSite	Remove-PnPTenantSite
Restore a deleted site	Restore-SPODeletedSite	Restore-PnPTenantRecycleBinItem
List deleted sites	Get-SPODeletedSite -Limit ALL	Get-PnPTenantDeletedSite
Purge a deleted site	Remove-SPODeletedSite	Remove-PnPTenantDeletedSite
Site users	Get-SPOUser -Site	Get-PnPUser
SharePoint groups	Get-SPOSiteGroup -Site	Get-PnPGroup, Get-PnPGroupMember
Add to a SharePoint group	Add-SPOUser	Add-PnPGroupMember
Site collection admin	Set-SPOUser -IsSiteCollectionAdmin	Add-PnPSiteCollectionAdmin
Tenant settings	Get-SPOTenant, Set-SPOTenant	Get-PnPTenant, Set-PnPTenant
Lists, items, files	Not available	Get-PnPList, Get-PnPListItem, Add-PnPFile, Get-PnPFile
Site recycle bin	Not available	Get-PnPRecycleBinItem, Restore-PnPRecycleBinItem

Connect to SharePoint Online

Both modules need a one-time install. PnP also needs your own Entra ID app registration for -ClientId, because the shared PnP Management Shell app has been retired:

# PnP PowerShell (PowerShell 7.4+), one-time install
Install-Module PnP.PowerShell -Scope CurrentUser
Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuides" -ClientId "<your-app-id>" -Interactive

# SharePoint Online Management Shell (SPO cmdlets)
Install-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -Scope CurrentUser
Import-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -UseWindowsPowerShell   # only in PowerShell 7
Connect-SPOService -Url "https://spguides-admin.sharepoint.com"

Here’s my connection check against the SPGuides site. It confirms the site title, the module version and how many PnP cmdlets are loaded:

PnP.PowerShell 3.3.0 shipped 899 cmdlets. For certificates, app-only sign-in and the SPO options, see connecting to SharePoint Online using PowerShell.

Site commands

For site collections, the SPO cmdlets are still the classic admin choice. Run them after Connect-SPOService:

# SPO: every site, then one site's storage and sharing
Get-SPOSite -Limit All | Select-Object Title, Url, Template, StorageUsageCurrent
Get-SPOSite -Identity "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuides" -Detailed

# SPO: create a classic-template site (StorageQuota is in MB)
New-SPOSite -Url "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance" -Owner "admin@spguides.onmicrosoft.com" `
    -StorageQuota 1024 -Title "Finance" -Template "STS#3" -LocaleId 1033

The PnP version runs on an admin center connection. I counted the sites by template and read the sharing settings in one script:

My tenant has 166 sites, and 115 are GROUP#0, which means team sites connected to a Microsoft 365 group. For a full inventory export, see getting all SharePoint Online sites using PnP PowerShell, and for modern sites use New-PnPSite to create a site.

List and list item commands

Task	PnP command
Get all lists	Get-PnPList
Create a list	New-PnPList -Title "Tasks" -Template GenericList
Read items	Get-PnPListItem -List "Tasks" -PageSize 500
Add an item	Add-PnPListItem -List "Tasks" -Values @{Title="New"}
Update an item	Set-PnPListItem -List "Tasks" -Identity 1 -Values @{Title="Done"}
Delete an item	Remove-PnPListItem -List "Tasks" -Identity 1 -Recycle

Here’s a real run: I created a demo list, added three items, read them back and then listed the biggest lists on the site:

-PageSize matters on big lists. My Service Requests list has 623 items, and paging keeps the read under the 5,000-item view threshold. More examples are in creating, reading, updating and deleting list items with PnP PowerShell.

File and folder commands

Files work the same way: Add-PnPFolder creates a folder, Add-PnPFile uploads, Get-PnPFolderItem lists and Get-PnPFile -AsFile downloads. This run did all four in a new library:

Add-PnPFile returns the uploaded file, so you get its server-relative URL straight away. For bulk work, see uploading files to a SharePoint library using PnP PowerShell and downloading all files from a document library.

User, group and permission commands

Adding people to groups and making someone a site collection admin are the two jobs I script most. Each line pair shows the SPO version first, then PnP:

# Add a user to a SharePoint group
Add-SPOUser -Site "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuides" -LoginName "alexw@spguides.onmicrosoft.com" -Group "SPGuides Members"
Add-PnPGroupMember -LoginName "alexw@spguides.onmicrosoft.com" -Group "SPGuides Members"

# Make someone a site collection admin
Set-SPOUser -Site "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuides" -LoginName "meganb@spguides.onmicrosoft.com" -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $true
Add-PnPSiteCollectionAdmin -Owners "meganb@spguides.onmicrosoft.com"

To see who’s in each group, combine Get-PnPGroup with Get-PnPGroupMember:

The site has its default Owners, Members and Visitors groups, and 18 users in the site user list. For a full permissions report, see checking site permissions in SharePoint Online.

Sharing and tenant settings commands

External sharing is set at the tenant level and can be tightened per site, never loosened past the tenant. The earlier tenant report showed ExternalUserAndGuestSharing with Anyone links that expire in 30 days. These lines lock it down:

# Tenant level: new and existing guests, no Anyone links
Set-SPOTenant -SharingCapability ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly
Set-PnPTenant -SharingCapability ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly

# One site: turn external sharing off
Set-SPOSite -Identity "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance" -SharingCapability Disabled
Set-PnPTenantSite -Identity "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance" -SharingCapability Disabled

The four values are Disabled, ExistingExternalUserSharingOnly, ExternalUserSharingOnly and ExternalUserAndGuestSharing. To share one site with a partner instead, follow sharing a SharePoint site with external users.

Recycle bin commands

Deleted lists, files and items go to the site recycle bin first. Remove-PnPList -Recycle sends a list there instead of deleting it for good, which is how I cleaned up my demo lists:

Use the Id from that output to restore an item. Deleted sites are different: they sit in the admin center for 93 days, so restore them with the admin commands:

# Site recycle bin: restore one item by its Id
Restore-PnPRecycleBinItem -Identity "6a6e0a0f-e73f-43db-bfe3-f49032d534c1" -Force

# Deleted sites (admin connection)
Get-SPODeletedSite
Restore-SPODeletedSite -Identity "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance"
Restore-PnPTenantRecycleBinItem -Url "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance" -Wait

The SharePoint recycle bin tutorial explains the first and second stages in the browser.

SharePoint Server (on-premises) commands

If you run SharePoint Server, the cmdlets are different. They start with SP and run on a farm server in Windows PowerShell, not PowerShell 7:

# SharePoint Server 2016 / 2019 (Windows PowerShell on a farm server)
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Get-SPSite -Limit All | Select-Object Url, Owner
Get-SPWeb "https://intranet.spguides.local/sites/hr" | Select-Object Title, Url
Backup-SPSite "https://intranet.spguides.local/sites/hr" -Path "D:\Backups\hr.bak"
Restore-SPSite "https://intranet.spguides.local/sites/hr" -Path "D:\Backups\hr.bak" -Force

In SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, the cmdlets became a module that loads in any Windows PowerShell console, so you can skip Add-PSSnapin. None of these work against SharePoint Online.

Common errors with SharePoint PowerShell commands

• The term ‘Get-SPSite’ is not recognized: that’s a SharePoint Server cmdlet. For Microsoft 365, use Get-SPOSite or Get-PnPTenantSite.
• SPO cmdlets fail in PowerShell 7: import the module with -UseWindowsPowerShell, or run them in Windows PowerShell 5.1.
• Connect-PnPOnline asks for a client ID: register your own Entra ID app and pass -ClientId.
• New-SPOSite says the URL is in use: a deleted site with that URL is still in the recycle bin. Restore it or remove it from the admin center first.

Ready to automate more? These guides go deeper on the commands above:

• PnP PowerShell Scripts for SharePoint Developers
• How to Get All Lists and Libraries from a SharePoint Online Site Using PnP PowerShell
• How to Get SharePoint Online Site Details Using PowerShell
• How to Delete All Items from a SharePoint List Using PnP PowerShell

Frequently Asked Questions