Automating File Uploads to a SharePoint Library with PowerShell

SCENARIO

You have an automated process that creates a large quantity of documents on a local or network drive and you need a quick, easy and cheap way to upload those documents to a SharePoint Online site. PowerShell PnP is the answer.

PREREQUISITES

Before running the script, you’ll need the following:

• PnP.PowerShell installed – At the time of writing, I’m using 2.12.0
• Site Collection Admin on the site you want to upload to
• PowerShell 7

POWERSHELL SCRIPT

This script will take the contents of a local folder, loop through each of the files and upload them to the root folder of the document library on the target SharePoint site.

# Connect to SharePoint Online
$SiteURL = "https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite"
$clientID = "yourclientIDGUID"
$libraryName = "LibraryName"
$LocalFolderPath = "C:\FilesToUpload\"
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $siteUrl -Interactive -ClientId $clientID

# Upload files from the local folder
$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path $LocalFolderPath
foreach ($File in $Files) 
{
    $FilePath = $File.FullName
    $TargetURL = "$LibraryName/$($File.Name)"
    Write-Host "Uploading $($File.Name) to $LibraryName..."
    Add-PnPFile -Path $FilePath -Folder $LibraryName
}

Write-Host "Upload complete!"