How to export and import lists and libraries from a SharePoint 2010 site using Powershell

Let’s imagine this scenario:

You have an old SharePoint 2010 site and you need to copy its content to another SharePoint farm.  The site is heavily customized and moving it using traditional methods (backup/restore, export/import, save site as a template) are not going to work well.  Plus you only want content – no need to bring in all of that custom branding baggage.

You can copy the content using PowerShell and two scripts shown below.

Script # 1:   Export all lists and libraries from the source site.

add-pssnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell

# specify the site URL to export

$web = Get-SPWeb "http://sharepointURL/sites/site1/web1"

# specify output folder to store exported lists

$path = "c:\admin\export\"

foreach($list in $web.lists)

{

"Exporting " + $list.RootFolder.URL

export-spweb $web.URL -ItemUrl $list.RootFolder.URL -IncludeUserSecurity -IncludeVersions All -path ($path + $list + ".cmp") -nologfile

}

The output of this script should be a number of CMP files in the output directory.  Review these files and remove the lists that should not be imported (such as various Gallery lists).

Script # 2:  Import CMP files into the destination site.

add-pssnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell

# specify target SharePoint site to import into

$site = "http://sharepoint/sites/test1"

# specify folder containing exported lists

$folder = "C:\Admin\Import\"

$Files = Get-ChildItem $folder

foreach ($file in $files)
{

$name = $file.Name

"Importing: " + "$folder$name"

import-spweb $site -path ("$folder$name") -includeusersecurity -nologfile

}