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SharePoint Online: Get List Items from Folder using PowerShell

Salaudeen Rajack 3 Comments

Requirement: Get all list items from a folder in SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online: PowerShell to Get List Items in a Folder

Getting all items from the SharePoint list folder is a common requirement when working with client-side object model scripts. In this blog post, we will be looking at how you can use PowerShell to get list items from a particular folder. We will also be looking at exporting folder contents to a CSV file. This can be particularly useful if you need to quickly gather information from a specific folder in SharePoint Online. Let’s get started!

Here is the SharePoint CSOM to get folder items:

#Load SharePoint CSOM Assemblies
Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"
Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"

Function Get-ListItemsFromFolder()
{
    param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $SiteURL,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $ListName,
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $FolderURL
    )
    Try {
        #Setup Credentials to connect
        $Cred = Get-Credential
        $Cred = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($Cred.UserName,$Cred.Password)
    
        #Setup the context
        $Ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($SiteURL)
        $Ctx.Credentials = $Cred

        #Get the list
        $List=$Ctx.Web.Lists.GetByTitle($ListName)

        #Frame CamlQuery to retrieve the items from the Folder
        $CAMLQuery= New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.CamlQuery
        #Set relative URL of the folder
        $CAMLQuery.FolderServerRelativeUrl=$FolderURL   

        #Get List Items from the Folder
        $ListItems=$List.GetItems($CAMLQuery)
        $Ctx.Load($ListItems)
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()

        Write-host "Total Number of Items Found:"$ListItems.Count

        #Iterate through all list items
        Foreach($Item in $ListItems)
        {
            #Get Ids for each Item
            Write-Host $item["ID"]
        }
    }
    Catch {
        write-host -f Red "Error Getting List Items from Folder!" $_.Exception.Message
    }
}

#Set Parameter Values
$SiteURL="https://crescent.sharepoint.com"
$ListName="Projects"

#Relative URL to the Folder - For Libraries, E.g: "/Documents/2018" or "/sites/sales/documents/projects/active"
$FolderURL="/Lists/Projects/Active"

#Call the function to get list items from folder
Get-ListItemsFromFolder -SiteURL $SiteURL -ListName $ListName -FolderURL $FolderURL

This SharePoint Online PowerShell gets all items in the folder. If you want to get all files from a document library, use: PowerShell to get list of files in document library in SharePoint Online

To get all files and folders from a given folder, you must set the view scope. Otherwise, it gets all files and folders ONLY from the given folder location and not anything underneath!

$CAMLQuery.ViewXml = "<View Scope='RecursiveAll' /><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='ServerRelativeUrl'/><Value Type='Text'>/Documents/Archived/2018</Value></Eq></Where>";

SharePoint Online: Get All Items in a Folder using PnP PowerShell

Here is the SharePoint CAML to get items in a folder:

#Config Variables
$SiteURL = "https://Crescent.sharepoint.com"
$ListName = "Projects"
$FolderRelativeURL= "/Lists/Projects/2018"
 
#Get Credentials to connect
$Cred = Get-Credential
 
Try {
    #Connect to PnP Online
    Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -Credentials $Cred
 
    #Get All Items from the Folder
    $CAMLQuery = "<View Scope='RecursiveAll'><Query><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='FileDirRef'/><Value Type='Text'>$FolderRelativeURL</Value></Eq></Where></Query></View>"
    $FolderItems = Get-PnPListItem -List $ListName -Query $CAMLQuery
    
    Write-host "Total Number of Items in the Folder:" $FolderItems.Count
    ForEach($Item in $FolderItems)
    {
        Write-host $Item["Title"]
    }
}
catch {
    write-host "Error: $($_.Exception.Message)" -foregroundcolor Red
}

You can also use the Get-PnPFolderItem cmdlet with the URL of the folder to retrieve all items from a folder or sub-folder:

Get-PnPFolderItem -FolderSiteRelativeUrl "/Shared Documents/New"

Get All Files and Folders from a Folder Recursively

You may encounter a list view threshold exceeded issue when dealing with bigger lists and libraries, as Get-PnPFolderItem doesn’t have the “Pagesize” parameter. As a result, you may get a “Get-PnPFolderItem: The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold.” error. So, Here is the trick to get all items from a folder recursively:

#Set Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing"
$FolderServerRelativeURL = "/Sites/Marketing/Shared Documents/New"
  
#Connect to PnP Online
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -Interactive

#Get the Folder to download
$Folder = Get-PnPFolder -Url $FolderServerRelativeURL -Includes ListItemAllFields.ParentList
#Get the Parent List
$List = $Folder.ListItemAllFields.ParentList

#Get all Items from the folder - with progress bar
$global:counter = 0;
$ListItems = Get-PnPListItem -List $List -PageSize 500 -Fields FileLeafRef -ScriptBlock { Param($items) $global:counter += $items.Count; Write-Progress -PercentComplete `
                ($global:Counter / ($List.ItemCount) * 100) -Activity "Getting Items from List:" -Status "Processing Items $global:Counter to $($List.ItemCount)";} | Where {$_.FieldValues.FileRef -like "$($FolderServerRelativeUrl)*"} 
Write-Progress -Activity "Completed Retrieving Items from Folder $FolderServerRelativeURL" -Completed

#Get All Files and Folders from the Folder Recursively
$ListItems | ForEach-Object {
    Write-host $_.FieldValues.FileRef
}

PowerShell to Get All Files and Folders Inventory from a Folder

How about generating an inventory report (CSV) of all files and folders from a given folder in SharePoint Online?

#Config Variables
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Funds"
$ListName ="Funds"
$FolderServerRelativePath = "/sites/Funds/NeoFunds/EAEF IV*" #Any file under the given path   
$ReportOutput = "C:\Temp\EAEFIV-Inventory.csv"
$Pagesize = 500
#Array to store results
$Results = @()

#Connect to PnP Online
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -UseWebLogin
$List  = Get-PnPList -Identity $ListName

$global:counter = 0; 
$ListItems = Get-PnPListItem -List $ListName -PageSize $Pagesize -Fields Author, Editor, Created, File_x0020_Type -ScriptBlock `
     { Param($items) $global:counter += $items.Count; Write-Progress -PercentComplete ($global:Counter / ($List.ItemCount) * 100) -Activity `
        "Getting Documents from Library '$($List.Title)'" -Status "Getting Documents data $global:Counter of $($List.ItemCount)";} | Where {$_.FieldValues.FileRef -like $FolderServerRelativePath} 

$ItemCounter = 0
#Iterate through each item
Foreach ($Item in $ListItems)
{
        $Results += New-Object PSObject -Property ([ordered]@{
            Name              = $Item["FileLeafRef"]
            Type              = $Item.FileSystemObjectType
            FileType          = $Item["File_x0020_Type"]
            RelativeURL       = $Item["FileRef"]
            CreatedByEmail    = $Item["Author"].Email
            CreatedOn         = $Item["Created"]
            Modified          = $Item["Modified"]
            ModifiedByEmail   = $Item["Editor"].Email
        })
    $ItemCounter++
    Write-Progress -PercentComplete ($ItemCounter / ($ListItems.Count) * 100) -Activity "Exporting data from Documents $ItemCounter of $($ListItems.Count)" -Status "Exporting Data from Document '$($Item['FileLeafRef'])"        
}
  
#Export the results to CSV
$Results | Export-Csv -Path $ReportOutput -NoTypeInformation
   
Write-host "Folder Inventory Exported to CSV Successfully!" -f Green

This gets all items in a folder in SharePoint Online. Here is another post to get files from a folder SharePoint Online: Get All Files from Folder

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - SharePoint Expert with Two decades of SharePoint Experience. Love to Share my knowledge and experience with the SharePoint community, through real-time articles!

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