Create and delete SharePoint list views with PowerShell

Here’s how you can create and delete views in a SharePoint list or library using PowerShell (Is there anything that can’t be done through a PowerShell script?)

The script below creates a view called “TestView”.  It expects three command-line arguments:  site collection URL, the name of the view to create, and the list GUID.  The view that’s created is an exact replica of the “All Items” view (you can certainly modify the code as needed).  Here’s how you would call this script from the command line:

powershell  CreateView.ps1 "your_site_collection_URL" "TestView" "List GUID 6865306f-60e0-4889-addd-4fb9862e72e0"

Script code (use the button in the top right corner to copy it to the clipboard):

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::Load("Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c") | out-null

# reading command line arguments

$siteURL = $args[0]

$strViewName = $args[1]

$ListGUID = $args[2]

# enter your CAML query for the view here...

$strQuery = "<Where><Gt><FieldRef Name='ID'/><Value Type='Counter'>0</Value></Gt></Where>"

 # create a new SPsite object and recursively go through all webs

# until a matching list GUID is found

$site=new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($siteURL)

foreach ($web in $site.AllWebs)
{
 

foreach ($list in $web.Lists)
{

$ListTempGUID = $list.ID.ToString()
  

if ($ListTempGUID.Contains($ListGUID))
{

write-host "**********************************************"
write-host "Match found. Preparing to create a view: ", $strViewName
write-host "List Title: ", $list.Title
write-host "List GUID: ", $list.ID

$fields = $list.Views["All Items"].ViewFields.ToStringCollection()

$result = $list.Views.Add($strViewName, $fields, $strQuery, 100, $True, $False , "HTML", $False)

write-host "View ", $strViewName , " was created successfully."

break

}
}

} 

write-host "Done."

$site.Dispose(); ##ENFORCED DISPOSAL!!!

    

So far, so good?  Well, now that you’ve created a view, how do you delete it?  Follow the same logic, only instead of using the Add method of SPViewCollection object, we’ll be using the Delete method.

Same command line arguments as before:  site collection URL, name of the view, and list GUID.

Calling script from the command line:

powershell  DeleteView.ps1 "your_site_collection_URL" "TestView" "List GUID 6865346f-60e0-4889-addd-4fb3862572e0"

 

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::Load("Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c") | out-null

# reading command line arguments...

$siteURL = $args[0]

$strViewName = $args[1]

$ListGUID = $args[2] 
# creating a new site object and recursively searching through its lists

# until a matching list GUID is found

$site=new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite($siteURL)

foreach ($web in $site.AllWebs)
{
 

foreach ($list in $web.Lists)
{

$ListTempGUID = $list.ID.ToString()
  

if ($ListTempGUID.Contains($ListGUID))
{
foreach ($view in $list.Views)
{

If ( $view.Title.Contains($strViewName))
{

write-host "**********************************************"
write-host "Match found. Preparing to DELETE a view: ", $view.Title
write-host "List Title: ", $list.Title
write-host "List GUID: ", $list.ID

# you can insert a pause here if you like...

$list.Views.Delete($view.ID)

write-host "View ", $view.Title , " has been deleted successfully."

break

}
}

break

}

}

}
write-host "Done."

$site.Dispose(); ##ENFORCED DISPOSAL!!! 
 

Finally,  how do you find out the GUID of your list?  It’s fairly straightforward – you just need to access the SPList.ID property of your list.  Here’s a simple script that will output the GUIDs of all lists in your site collection:

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::Load("Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c") | out-null
# write column headings

write-host "List URL ; Web URL ; Web Title ; List Title; List GUID ;"

# create a site object and recursively list all of its list objects and their details
 $site=new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite("http://your_site_collection_URL)  

  foreach ($web in $site.AllWebs)
 {
  foreach ($list in $web.Lists)
 {
 write-host $list.DefaultViewURL, ";", $web.URL , ";",  $web.Title , ";" , $list.Title , ";" , $list.ID

 }

 }

$site.Dispose(); ##ENFORCED DISPOSAL!!!

Testing access to SharePoint pages

Let’s say you have a long list of SharePoint pages that need to be tested to verify that they’re permissioned correctly.  One way to do it is to take a non-privileged account (end user) and attempt to connect to each of the URLs.  If the page is locked down, you’ll get a page titled “Access denied”; otherwise, the page will load normally.

I recently responded to a thread on SharePoint TechNet about a similar issue and ended up writing a PowerShell script to address it.

The script below will read a text file containing a list of URLs (make sure to modify the source file path with your own path), and then call a function for each URL.  This function will open a new instance of IE, navigate to the URL, wait for the page to load, and then grab the title of the page.  If the user doesn’t have access to the page, the page title will contain “Access denied”; otherwise, the page title will be returned.  Run this script under the credentials of one of your end users.  If you’re trying to open individual documents (Word, Excel, etc.), you may need to modify the script so that it launches correct application (and closes it when done).

# This script will read a text file containing a list of URLs and attempt to connect to each URL.  Successful connection will return the page's title; otherwise, the script will return Access denied error.

# OpenIE function starts here...
# This function launches a new instance of IE and then navigates to the specified URL

function OpenIE($url)
{

if ($url -notlike "http://*")
{

$url = "http://" + $url

}
$ie = new-object -com "InternetExplorer.Application"

$ie.Visible = $true

$ie.Navigate($url)

# wait for IE to load the page

While( $ie.Busy )
{
[System.Threading.Thread]::Sleep(100)
}

# grab page title - if access is denied, the page title will say so

$Title = $ie.Document.Title

$ie.Quit()

return $Title

}

 

# *** Main script routine starts here ***
# specify your source file path here...

$SourceFilePath = "C:\Shared\list.txt"

write-host "Starting script..."

# read the source file into an array of strings, iterate through each one

$list = Get-Content $SourceFilePath

foreach ($item in $list)
{

$result = OpenIE($item)

write-host $item, ";" , $result

}

write-host "Finished."