Auditing SharePoint Online Site Sharing Settings with PowerShell

Auditing SharePoint Online Site Sharing Settings with PowerShell

Overview

Managing the sharing settings of SharePoint Online sites is essential to maintaining control over your organization’s data. This article provides a detailed overview of how to use PowerShell to audit the sharing capabilities of all SharePoint Online sites in your tenant.

We will explore a script that connects to SharePoint Online, retrieves all site collections, and checks their sharing settings. This script enables administrators to quickly assess the current sharing configurations across the organization, ensuring that data sharing is aligned with corporate policies.

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Key Capabilities

Feature	Capability	Business Value
Site Collection Retrieval	Connect to SharePoint Online and retrieve all site collections	Provides comprehensive visibility into all SharePoint sites in the tenant
Sharing Settings Analysis	Check sharing capabilities for each site individually	Enables security auditing and policy compliance verification
Automated Reporting	Export results to CSV format for documentation and analysis	Facilitates compliance reporting and security reviews
Bulk Processing	Process all sites automatically with minimal administrative overhead	Saves time and reduces manual errors in large environments

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Implementation Script

# Connect to SharePoint Online
$adminUrl = "https://xxx-admin.sharepoint.com"
Connect-SPOService -Url $adminUrl

# Retrieve all SharePoint sites
$sites = Get-SPOSite -Limit All

# Prepare an array to hold the sharing settings information
$sharingInfo = @()

foreach ($site in $sites) {
    # Get sharing settings for each site
    $sharingSettings = Get-SPOSite -Identity $site.Url | Select-Object -Property Url, SharingCapability

    # Add to the array
    $sharingInfo += $sharingSettings
}

# Display the sharing settings
$sharingInfo | Format-Table -AutoSize

# Optionally export to CSV
$sharingInfo | Export-Csv -Path "SharePointSitesSharingSettings.csv" -NoTypeInformation
Write-Output "Sharing settings exported to SharePointSitesSharingSettings.csv"

# Disconnect from SharePoint Online
Disconnect-SPOService

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Best Practices

Security Recommendation: Regularly audit SharePoint site sharing settings to ensure they align with your organization’s data governance policies and compliance requirements.

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Output Analysis

The script generates a comprehensive report showing:

• Site URL: Each SharePoint site in your tenant
• Sharing Capability: Current sharing configuration (ExternalUserAndGuestSharing, ExternalUserSharingOnly, Disabled, etc.)

Use this information to identify sites that may need sharing restrictions applied or policies updated.