In this article, you will learn how to bulk modify Active Directory user attributes using PowerShell and the AD Pro Toolkit. Both options will use a CSV file to bulk update AD User accounts.
In this article
- Bulk Modify AD User Attributes with PowerShell
- Bulk Modify AD User Attributes with AD Pro Toolkit
- Bulk Clear AD User Attributes
Bulk Modify AD User Attributes with PowerShell
In this example, I’ll use the set-aduser cmdlet to update AD User attributes.
Step 1. Create CSV File
You need a CSV file with a list of users and the attributes you want to update. For example, I’m going to bulk update the description, job title, department, company and office attribute for multiple users. I’m using the users samaccountname in column A to identify the accounts to update.
CSV Example.
Step 2. Create and Run Script
The script below puts everything from the CSV into a hashtable. If you are updating different attributes just modify the hashtable section with your attributes.
$Users = Import-Csv -Path C:\it\BUlkModifyUsers.csv
ForEach ($User in $Users) {
#Let's create a hashtable of attributes to update our user with
$Attributes = @{
Description = $User.Description
Title = $User.title
Department = $User.Department
Company = $User.Company
Office = $User.Office
}
Set-AdUser -Identity $user.samAccountName @Attributes
Write-host $User.samAccountName "has been updated" -ForegroundColor Cyan
}Open PowerShell and run the script. I saved both my csv file and script into c:\it folder on my computer.
Thats it, pretty easy right? You can then use PowerShell to list all of the attributes for the user to verify they updated.
Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | select name, description, title, department, company, office | format-table
Easily Bulk Modify AD User Attributes with AD Pro Toolkit
The AD Pro Toolkit is a collection of Active Directory Tools to simplify and streamline Active Directory management. The included Bulk Modify Users tool makes it easy to update and remove user attributes.
Step 1. Download CSV Template
Click on Bulk Modify Users and then download the template.
Fill out the template with the user accounts and attributes you want to update. In this example, I will modify several attributes at once including adding users to groups and setting a manager.
- Tip #1 = You can remove columns from the template that you don’t need.
- Tip #2 = You can use the included user export tool to export accounts and attributes you want to update to a CSV. This makes it easier to create a template.
CSV Example.
Step 2. Run Bulk Update Users Tool
Select your CSV file and click run.
The toolkit will output how many accounts were updated and show and errors. As you can see the toolkit makes it very easy to bulk update AD attributes and requires no PowerShell scripting. Download AD Pro Toolkit and try it for free.
Bulk Remove User Attributes
In the previous example, I showed you how to mass update user attributes but what if you want to bulk remove user attributes?
No problem.
The process is almost the same, just add the LDAP attribute to the CSV and for the value put remove.
I’ll remove the values for the employeeid and employeenumber.
Now just run the tool, select the CSV and click run.
I’ll verify the changes in ADUC.
Looks good the values have been removed.
To verify with PowerShell use this command.
Get-ADUser -filter * -Properties * | select employeeid, employeenumber
Bonus! You can remove and update values at the same time.
There comes a time when every administrator faces the need to make bulk changes to Active Directory user accounts. I have faced this challenge several times and have struggled with it in the past. With the AD User Bulk Update Tool this is no longer a problem for me or my team to deal with. This tool makes it very easy and saves a great amount of time when dealing with modifying user accounts.
This tool is included in the AD Pro Toolkit. You can download a free trial here.