Manage SharePoint sites by using Windows PowerShell
In SharePoint Online, you can have multiple sites that contain different content. There's a default site designed for collaboration that's created automatically when you create your tenant. There are also sites created automatically for each Microsoft 365 group or Microsoft Team and OneDrive users. Additionally, you can create your own SharePoint sites and customize them.
Creating sites
You can use the New-SPOSite cmdlet to create new sites in SharePoint online. When you create a new site, the parameters in the following table are required.
Table 1: Parameters for creating a new site
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| -Url | The URL for the site, which needs to be with your SharePoint Online namespace. For example, if the default URL for your SharePoint Online tenant is https://adatum.sharepoint.com, then the URL for the site could be https://adatum.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing. |
| -Owner | The owner of the site that can manage it. |
| -StorageQuota | The maximum size of the site in megabytes (MB). This must be less than the quota available in the tenant. |
The following example creates a new site with [email protected] as the owner and a 256 MB storage quota:
New-SPOSite -Url https://adatum.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing -Owner [email protected] -StorageQuota 256
Most of the time when you create a site, you'll want to base it on a template. A template defines components that are automatically included in a site. There are templates included in SharePoint Online by default and you can also make your own. To review the template in your SharePoint Online tenant, use the Get-SPOWebTemplate cmdlet. To use a template when creating a site with the New-SPOSite cmdlet, use the -Template parameter.
Modifying sites
You can use the Set-SPOSite cmdlet to modify existing sites. To define which site you want to modify, use the -Identity parameter and provide the URL for the site. The URL for a site is a unique identifier for the site, and you cannot modify it by using Set-SPOSite. The following table lists some parameters you can use with Set-SPOSite.
Table 2: Parameters for modifying existing sites
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| -Title | Sets the title for the site. The title typically displays when users sign in to the site. For example, a title might be Marketing Portal. |
| -StorageQuotaWarningLevel | Sends a warning message to the site owner when the warning level is reached. This value should be less than the -StorageQuota. |
| -AllowEditing | Controls whether users are allowed to edit Office files in the browser, and copy and paste Office file content out of the browser window. |
| -LockState | Sets the lock state on a site. Valid values are: NoAccess, ReadOnly, and Unlock. |
The following example sets the title for a site:
Set-SPOSite -Identity https://adatum.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing -Title "Marketing Portal"
Listing and reviewing sites
You can use the Get-SPOSite cmdlet to review the sites created in your SharePoint Online tenant and their configurations. To list all sites in your tenant, don't include any parameters. To list the specific site's properties, you use the -Identity parameter and specify the site's URL. The following example depicts how to list a specific site's properties:
Get-SPOSite -Identity https://adatum.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing | Format-List
Removing sites
You use Remove-SPOSite to remove a site. The following example depicts how to use this cmdlet to remove a site:
Remove-SPOSite -Identity https://adatum.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing
When you remove a site, it's placed in the SharePoint Recycle Bin. You can use the Restore-SPODeletedSite cmdlet to restore a site from the SharePoint Recycle Bin. To purge a deleted site from the SharePoint Recycle Bin, you can use the Remove-SPODeletedSite cmdlet.
SharePoint Online terminology
The SharePoint admin center uses the site and sub-site terminology to describe how to nest content. When you create a sub-site, it inherits some of the settings from the site, such as the owner.
If you're familiar with the on-premises version of SharePoint, it uses the terminology site collections and sites instead. When reviewing documentation for SharePoint Online cmdlets, you might notice that it often uses the on-premises site collections terminology. There are no cmdlets for managing sites within site collections (or sub-sites).