How do I get the SharePoint site owner using PowerShell?

Run Get-PnPTenantSite -Identity -Detailed and read Owner or OwnerEmail. If the site has a GroupId, run Get-PnPMicrosoft365GroupOwner on that ID instead.

How do I get the site owner with Get-SPOSite?

Run Connect-SPOService, then Get-SPOSite -Identity | Select-Object Url, Owner. Use -Limit ALL when you read many sites, because the default is 200. Microsoft's Get-SPOSite reference lists every filter.

Why is the owner of a group-connected site a GUID ending in _o?

Group-connected sites are owned by their Microsoft 365 group's owners, so SharePoint stores the group's owners claim. Pass the site's GroupId to Get-PnPMicrosoft365GroupOwner to see the actual people.

How do I find the owner of every SharePoint site?

Loop through Get-PnPTenantSite, read group owners for group sites and OwnerEmail for the rest, then use Export-Csv. Empty owners point to system sites or orphaned groups.

Is the site owner the same as a site collection administrator?

Not exactly. Owner is the primary admin, but a site can have several admins, including group owners. Get-PnPSiteCollectionAdmin lists them all.

Get SharePoint Site Owner with PowerShell (PnP and SPO)

Many scripts that find a SharePoint site owner still load the AzureAD module. That module is retired, and those scripts also miss the real owners of sites connected to a Microsoft 365 group.

The better way is PnP PowerShell. Run Get-PnPTenantSite -Identity <site URL> -Detailed and read Owner. If the site has a GroupId, run Get-PnPMicrosoft365GroupOwner on that ID, because the group’s owners are the people who actually own the site.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover every get SharePoint site owner PowerShell task I run during tenant cleanups: the owner of one site, the owners of a group site, site collection admins, the Get-SPOSite way and a CSV report for every site.

Table of Contents:

The sample sites we’ll use

I ran every PnP example here against my own tenant. You’ll need PnP PowerShell in PowerShell 7 and your own Entra ID app; my guide to installing PnP PowerShell for SharePoint Online covers both.

Connect to the SharePoint admin center first:

$adminUrl = "https://spguides-admin.sharepoint.com"
$clientId = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"   # your Entra ID app's client ID

Connect-PnPOnline -Url $adminUrl -ClientId $clientId -Interactive

We’ll use two sites, because SharePoint stores ownership differently in each:

SPGuides News: a communication site, no group (SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0).
SPGuides: a team site with a Microsoft 365 group (GROUP#0).

Method 1: Get the Owner of a Non-Group Site with Get-PnPTenantSite (Recommended)

For a site without a group, the owner is the site’s primary admin. Here’s the command:

$siteUrl = "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuidesNews"

Get-PnPTenantSite -Identity $siteUrl -Detailed |
    Select-Object Title, Template, Owner, OwnerEmail, OwnerName, GroupId |
    Format-List

For SPGuides News, it returns the owner and an empty GroupId:

Get-PnPTenantSite -Detailed returning the Owner, OwnerEmail and OwnerName of a non-group SharePoint site

How does this work?

Get-PnPTenantSite reads the site from the admin center, so you don’t need access to the site itself. Owner is the sign-in name, OwnerEmail the address and OwnerName the display name.

A GroupId of all zeros means no Microsoft 365 group, so Owner is the real answer.

So here’s the catch: -Detailed isn’t optional. In my tenant, a plain Get-PnPTenantSite call left Owner empty for 141 of 165 sites and OwnerEmail empty for all 165.

Method 2: Get the Owners of a Group-Connected Site with Get-PnPMicrosoft365GroupOwner

Run the same command against the SPGuides site, and Owner doesn’t look like a person:

Get-PnPTenantSite showing a group-connected SharePoint site whose Owner is the Microsoft 365 group owners claim

9cc6ff72-…_o is the GroupId with _o added, which stands for the group’s owners. To see the people, ask the group. If you need the members too, see getting Microsoft 365 group members with PowerShell.

Here’s the command:

$site = Get-PnPTenantSite -Identity "https://spguides.sharepoint.com/sites/SPGuides"

Get-PnPMicrosoft365GroupOwner -Identity $site.GroupId |
    Select-Object DisplayName, UserPrincipalName |
    Format-Table -AutoSize

The SPGuides group has 4 owners, and every one of them owns the site: