CSV Folder PnP PowerShell PowerShell SharePoint SharePoint Online 

SharePoint Online: Bulk Delete Folders from a CSV using PowerShell

Salaudeen Rajack 2 Comments ,

Requirement: Bulk Delete Folders in SharePoint Online.

How to Bulk Delete Multiple Folders in SharePoint Online?

Have you ever had to bulk delete multiple folders from SharePoint Online to clean up your site or remove outdated or unwanted content? If so, you’re probably familiar with the challenge of selecting each folder and then deleting it. This blog post will show you how to quickly delete multiple folders in SharePoint Online.

We can use a CSV file with a PowerShell script to bulk delete folders with their subfolders and files:

#Set Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Projects"
$CSVFilePath = "C:\Users\Thomas\Desktop\BulkDeleteFolders.csv"
  
#Connect to the site
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -Interactive

#Get the data from CSV file
$CSVFile = Import-CSV $CSVFilePath | Sort-Object ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL -Descending
  
#Read CSV file and delete each folder
ForEach($Row in $CSVFile)
{
    Try {
        #Check if folder exists
        $Folder  = Get-PnPFolderItem -FolderSiteRelativeUrl $Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL -ItemName $Row.FolderName #-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        If($Folder -ne $Null)
        {
            #Delete the folder        
            Remove-PnPFolder -Name $Row.FolderName -Folder $Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL -Recycle -Force
            Write-host -f Green "Folder '$($Row.FolderName)' Deleted Successfully from $($Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL)"
        }
        Else
        {
            Write-Host "Folder '$($Row.FolderName)' doesn't exists at $($Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
        }
    }
    Catch {
        write-host -f Red "`tError:" $_.Exception.Message
    }
}

This script allows you to delete multiple folders at once, making it a more efficient process. This can be a helpful technique if you need to remove a large number of folders from your site quickly. Here is my CSV file with a list of folder names and the site relative URL of its parent folder.

SharePoint Online Bulk Delete Folders

You can download the CSV to delete folders from here:

CSV to Bulk Delete Folders in SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online: Can’t Delete Folder with Files?

The above script works fine when your site is not placed under any retention hold policies. However, you got to delete all files and sub-folders of the folder to avoid the “You have to delete all the items in this folder before you can delete this folder.” error message.

SharePoint Online: PowerShell script to Bulk Delete Folders from a CSV File

This PowerShell script recursively deletes each folder and its contents (files, sub-folders) from the CSV file in a given site.

#Set Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing"
$CSVFilePath = "C:\Users\Thomas\Desktop\BulkDeleteFolders.csv"

#Function to delete all Files and sub-folders from a Folder
Function Empty-PnPFolder($Folder)
{
    #Get the site relative path of the Folder
    If($Folder.Context.Web.ServerRelativeUrl -eq "/")
    {
        $FolderSiteRelativeURL = $Folder.ServerRelativeUrl
    }
    Else
    {        
        $FolderSiteRelativeURL = $Folder.ServerRelativeUrl.Replace($Folder.Context.Web.ServerRelativeURL,[string]::Empty)
    }

    #Delete all files in the Folder
    $Files = Get-PnPFolderItem -FolderSiteRelativeUrl $FolderSiteRelativeURL -ItemType File
    ForEach ($File in $Files)
    {
        #Delete File
        Remove-PnPFile -ServerRelativeUrl $File.ServerRelativeURL -Force -Recycle
        Write-Host -f Green ("`tDeleted File: '{0}' at '{1}'" -f $File.Name, $File.ServerRelativeURL)        
    }
 
    #Process all Sub-Folders
    $SubFolders = Get-PnPFolderItem -FolderSiteRelativeUrl $FolderSiteRelativeURL -ItemType Folder
    Foreach($SubFolder in $SubFolders)
    {
        #Exclude "Forms" and Hidden folders
        If(($SubFolder.Name -ne "Forms") -and (-Not($SubFolder.Name.StartsWith("_"))))
        {
            #Call the function recursively
            Empty-PnPFolder -Folder $SubFolder
 
            #Delete the folder
            Remove-PnPFolder -Name $SubFolder.Name -Folder $FolderSiteRelativeURL -Force -Recycle
            Write-Host -f Green ("`tDeleted Folder: '{0}' at '{1}'" -f $SubFolder.Name, $SubFolder.ServerRelativeURL)
        }
    }
}
  
#Connect to the site
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -Interactive

#Get the data from CSV file
$CSVFile = Import-CSV $CSVFilePath | Sort-Object ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL -Descending
  
#Read CSV file and delete each folder
ForEach($Row in $CSVFile)
{
    Try {
        #Check if folder exists
        $Folder  = Get-PnPFolderItem -FolderSiteRelativeUrl $Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL -ItemName $Row.FolderName #-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        If($Folder -ne $Null)
        {
            Write-Host -f Yellow "Deleting Folder '$($Row.FolderName)' from $($Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL)..."
            #Empty the Folder
            Empty-PnPFolder $Folder

            #Delete the folder
            Remove-PnPFolder -Name $Row.FolderName -Folder $Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL -Recycle -Force
            Write-host -f Green "`tFolder '$($Row.FolderName)' Deleted Successfully!"
        }
        Else
        {
            Write-Host "Folder '$($Row.FolderName)' doesn't exists at $($Row.ParentFolderSiteRelativeURL)" -ForegroundColor Yellow
        }
    }
    Catch {
        write-host -f Red "`tError:" $_.Exception.Message
    }
}

This script deletes all files and sub-folders first and then deletes the folder in SharePoint Online. To bulk delete files from a CSV file, use: SharePoint Online: Bulk Delete Files from a CSV using PowerShell

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack is a SharePoint Architect with Two decades of SharePoint Experience. He loves sharing his knowledge and experiences with the SharePoint community, through his real-world articles!

2 thoughts on “SharePoint Online: Bulk Delete Folders from a CSV using PowerShell”

Leave a Reply