Create SharePoint sites and add users with PowerShell

This article applies to both Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Office 365 Enterprise.

When you use PowerShell for Microsoft 365 to create SharePoint sites and add users, you can quickly and repeatedly perform tasks faster than you can in the Microsoft 365 admin center. You can also perform tasks that aren't possible to perform in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Connect to SharePoint

The procedures in this article require you to connect to SharePoint. For instructions, see Connect to SharePoint PowerShell.

Step 1: Create new site collections using PowerShell

Create multiple sites using PowerShell and a .csv file that you create using the example code provided and Notepad. For this procedure, you're replacing the placeholder information shown in brackets with your own site- and tenant-specific information. This process lets you create a single file and run a single PowerShell command that uses that file. This makes the actions both repeatable and portable and eliminates many, if not all, errors that can come from typing long commands into the SharePoint Management Shell. There are two parts to this procedure. First you create a .csv file, and then you reference that .csv file using PowerShell, which uses its contents to create the sites.

The PowerShell cmdlet imports the .csv file and pipes it to a loop inside the curly brackets that reads the opening line of the file as column headers. The PowerShell cmdlet then iterates through the remaining records, creates a new site collection for each record, and assigns properties of the site collection according to the column headers.

Create a .csv file

1. Open Notepad, and paste the following text block into it:

   Owner,StorageQuota,Url,ResourceQuota,Template,TimeZoneID,Name
   [email protected],100,https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TeamSite01,25,EHS#1,10,Contoso Team Site
   [email protected],100,https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Blog01,25,BLOG#0,10,Contoso Blog
   [email protected],150,https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Project01,25,PROJECTSITE#0,10,Project Alpha
   [email protected],150,https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01,25,COMMUNITY#0,10,Community Site
   

   Where tenant is the name of your tenant, and owner is the user name of the user on your tenant to whom you want to grant the role of primary site admin.

   (You can press Ctrl+H when you use Notepad to bulk replace faster.)

2. Save the file on your desktop as SiteCollections.csv.

Run the Windows PowerShell command

1. At the Windows PowerShell prompt, type or copy and paste the following command, and press Enter:

   Import-Csv C:\users\MyAlias\desktop\SiteCollections.csv | ForEach-Object {New-SPOSite -Owner $_.Owner -StorageQuota $_.StorageQuota -Url $_.Url -NoWait -ResourceQuota $_.ResourceQuota -Template $_.Template -TimeZoneID $_.TimeZoneID -Title $_.Name}
   

   Where MyAlias equals your user alias

2. Wait for the Windows PowerShell prompt to reappear. It might take a minute or two.

3. At the Windows PowerShell prompt, type or copy and paste the following cmdlet, and press Enter:

   Get-SPOSite -Detailed | Format-Table -AutoSize
   

4. Note the new site collections in the list. Using our example CSV file, you would see the following site collections: TeamSite01, Blog01, Project01, and Community01.

That’s it. You created multiple site collections using the .csv file you created and a single Windows PowerShell command. You’re now ready to create and assign users to these sites.

Step 2: Add users and groups

Now you’re going to create users and add them to a site collection group. You'll use a .csv file to bulk upload new groups and users.

The following procedures continue using the example sites TeamSite01, Blog01, Project01, and Community01.

Create .csv and .ps1 files

1. Open Notepad, and paste the following text block into it:

   Site,Group,PermissionLevels
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01,Contoso Project Leads,Full Control
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01,Contoso Auditors,View Only
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01,Contoso Designers,Design
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TeamSite01,XT1000 Team Leads,Full Control
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TeamSite01,XT1000 Advisors,Edit
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Blog01,Contoso Blog Designers,Design
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Blog01,Contoso Blog Editors,Edit
   https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Project01,Project Alpha Approvers,Full Control
   

   Where tenant equals your tenant name

2. Save the file to your desktop as GroupsAndPermissions.csv.

3. Open a new instance of Notepad, and paste the following text block into it:

   Group,LoginName,Site
   Contoso Project Leads,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01
   Contoso Auditors,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01
   Contoso Designers,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Community01
   XT1000 Team Leads,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TeamSite01
   XT1000 Advisors,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TeamSite01
   Contoso Blog Designers,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Blog01
   Contoso Blog Editors,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Blog01
   Project Alpha Approvers,[email protected],https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/Project01
   

   Where tenant equals your tenant name, and username equals the user name of an existing user.

4. Save the file to your desktop as Users.csv.

5. Open a new instance of Notepad, and paste the following text block into it:

   Import-Csv C:\users\MyAlias\desktop\GroupsAndPermissions.csv | ForEach-Object {New-SPOSiteGroup -Group $_.Group -PermissionLevels $_.PermissionLevels -Site $_.Site}
   Import-Csv C:\users\MyAlias\desktop\Users.csv | where {Add-SPOUser -Group $_.Group –LoginName $_.LoginName -Site $_.Site}
   

   Where MyAlias equals the user name of the user that is currently logged on.

6. Save the file to your desktop as UsersAndGroups.ps1, which is a simple Windows PowerShell script.

You’re now ready to run the UsersAndGroup.ps1 script to add users and groups to multiple site collections.

Run UsersAndGroups.ps1 script

1. Return to the SharePoint Management Shell.

2. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type or copy and paste the following line, and press Enter:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass
   

3. At the confirmation prompt, press Y.

4. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type or copy and paste the following, and press Enter:

   c:\users\MyAlias\desktop\UsersAndGroups.ps1
   

   Where MyAlias equals your user name

5. Wait for the prompt to return before moving on. You'll first see the groups appear as they're created. Then you'll see the group list repeated as users are added.

See also

Connect to SharePoint PowerShell

Manage SharePoint site groups with PowerShell

Manage Microsoft 365 with PowerShell

Getting started with PowerShell for Microsoft 365