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Install PnP PowerShell and Connect to SharePoint Online

ByG Vijai Kumar

Installation of PnP PowerShell can be done in a single line. It is the connection part that will give problems to someone who uses an old script, as starting from September 2024, app registration is required, which previously wasn’t required.

All the commands were run using PowerShell 7.5.8 version along with PnP.PowerShell 2.12.0. This output was generated by my machine and not by the documentation.

Install the module

Install-Module PnP.PowerShell -Scope CurrentUser

-Scope CurrentUser It gets installed on your profile level and therefore no administrator rights are required for running PowerShell.

If you have PnP installed for some time then you may get this instead of installing

WARNING: Version '2.12.0' of module 'PnP.PowerShell' is already installed at
'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\PnP.PowerShell\2.12.0'. To install
version '3.3.0', run Install-Module and add the -Force parameter.

That’s not an error message. The module found an older version of itself, installed system wide and did not want to overwrite it. Use -Force if you still want the newer version to be placed right next to the old one.

To check your current installation use the following command

Get-Module PnP.PowerShell -ListAvailable | Select-Object Name, Version, ModuleBase
Name           Version ModuleBase
----           ------- ----------
PnP.PowerShell 2.12.0  C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\PnP.PowerShell

A good idea to start with, since the syntax of some of the cmdlets was altered from 2.x to 3.x, and more than half the online guides available do not specify which version they refer to.

You need an app registration first

This is the part that catches everyone coming back to an old script. You cannot just connect any more:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Demo" -Interactive
WARNING: Connecting with -Interactive used the PnP Management Shell multi-tenant
App Id for authentication. As of September 9th, 2024 this option is not available
anymore.

Specified method is not supported.

The red line is what everyone copies into Google. The solution to the problem is in the yellow warning above the red line that most people ignore when scrolling down.

Register your application once per tenant:

Register-PnPEntraIDAppForInteractiveLogin `
    -ApplicationName "PnP.PowerShell" `
    -Tenant contoso.onmicrosoft.com `
    -Interactive

On 2.x you must include -Interactive or you get an unhelpful “Parameter set cannot be resolved”. I wrote that up separately in Connect-PnPOnline: Specified method is not supported.

Copy the Client ID it gives you at the end. You need it every single time from now on.

Connect

Connect-PnPOnline `
    -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Demo" `
    -ClientId "b1539324-4fa0-4bf0-8c45-949d49fbe112" `
    -Interactive

Your browser opens, you sign in, and the command finishes with no output at all. That is normal, PnP tells you nothing when it works.

Check it actually connected

Because it says nothing on success, get into the habit of confirming:

Get-PnPWeb | Select-Object Title, Url, Id
Title : PowerShell Demo
Url   : https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Demo
Id    : cfa3cc52-ce17-4c52-a7b8-89ae0c4f66e6

And if you want to see what you are connected as:

Get-PnPConnection | Select-Object Url, ConnectionType, ClientId
Url            : https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/demo
ConnectionType : O365
ClientId       : a0748433-4fa0-4bf0-8c45-949d49fbe112

The first thing everyone runs, and the first surprise

Get-PnPList | Select-Object Title, ItemCount, Hidden

On a site where I had made exactly four lists, that returned nineteen:

Title                 ItemCount Hidden
-----                 --------- ------
appdata                       0   True
Composed Looks               18   True
Departments                   4  False
Documents                     0  False
Master Page Gallery         175   True
Project Documents             9  False
Projects                     25  False
Site Pages                    1  False
Style Library                 0  False
TaxonomyHiddenList            0   True
Theme Gallery                41   True
User Information List         9   True
Web Part Gallery              6   True

Most of those are system lists SharePoint creates for itself. You almost always want:

Get-PnPList | Where-Object { -not $_.Hidden } | Select-Object Title, ItemCount

The same thing happens with folders. Listing a document library gives you a Forms folder you did not create:

Name      Type
----      ----
Archive   Folder
Contracts Folder
Forms     Folder
Reports   Folder

The Forms folder contains all the forms pages within the library and exists in each library at each site. In case you are looping over folders in order to do something, filter out this folder; otherwise your script would attempt to process it.

Disconnect when you are done

Disconnect-PnPOnline

Although not strictly necessary, this becomes very helpful when you need to switch between different tenants during a single session.

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