We have script to delete versions for whole document list. Need to edit it to delete only from a specific folder within the list since we get error when deleting as "threshold limit exceeded"

Question

#Config Variables
$SiteURL = "https://zqh7j.sharepoint.com/sites/test"
$ListName="Documents"
$VersionsToKeep = 2

#Connect to PnP Online
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -UseWebLogin

#Get the Context
$Ctx= Get-PnPContext

#Get All Items from the List - Exclude 'Folder' List Items
$ListItems = Get-PnPListItem -List $ListName -Query "<View Scope='RecursiveAll'><Query><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='FSObjType'/><Value Type='Integer'>0</Value></Eq></Where></Query></View>"

ForEach ($Item in $ListItems)
{
    #Get File Versions
    $File = $Item.File
    $Versions = $File.Versions
    $Ctx.Load($File)
    $Ctx.Load($Versions)
    $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()

    Write-host -f Yellow "Scanning File:"$File.Name
    $VersionsCount = $Versions.Count
    $VersionsToDelete = $VersionsCount - $VersionsToKeep
    If($VersionsToDelete -gt 0)
    {
        write-host -f Cyan "`t Total Number of Versions of the File:" $VersionsCount
        #Delete versions
        For($i=0; $i -lt $VersionsToDelete; $i++)
        {
            write-host -f Cyan "`t Deleting Version:" $Versions[0].VersionLabel
            $Versions[0].DeleteObject()
        }
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
        Write-Host -f Green "`t Version History is cleaned for the File:"$File.Name
    }
}

Answer 1

Hi @Anonymous

The codeproject article referenced in the question is apparently using either an incorrect or outdated schema for the CAML.
When you set the ViewXml property of the CamlQuery, the top-level XML element should be the <View>. The <Query> is one of the optional child elements. SharePoint was effectively ignoring your <RowLimit> element (rather than perhaps throwing a helpful exception about XML schema), thus resulting in the List View Threshold exception.

We can fetch all the items(include folders) and keep it in collection object and query this collection object using Linq expression. Please refer to following script

#Get All Items from the List 
$ListItems = Get-PnPListItem -List $ListName -Query "<View Scope='RecursiveAll'><RowLimit>5000</RowLimit></View>"

ForEach ($Item in $ListItems)
{
    Exclude 'Folder' List Items
    If($Item.FileSystemObjectType = 0){
        #Get File Versions
        $File = $Item.File
        $Versions = $File.Versions
        $Ctx.Load($File)
        $Ctx.Load($Versions)
        $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()

        Write-host -f Yellow "Scanning File:"$File.Name
        $VersionsCount = $Versions.Count
        $VersionsToDelete = $VersionsCount - $VersionsToKeep
        If($VersionsToDelete -gt 0)
        {
            write-host -f Cyan "`t Total Number of Versions of the File:" $VersionsCount
            #Delete versions
            For($i=0; $i -lt $VersionsToDelete; $i++)
            {
                write-host -f Cyan "`t Deleting Version:" $Versions[0].VersionLabel
                $Versions[0].DeleteObject()
            }
            $Ctx.ExecuteQuery()
            Write-Host -f Green "`t Version History is cleaned for the File:"$File.Name
        }
    } 
}

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Answer 2

Sorry for posting here but your post and comments are related with what I need to accomplish.

I'm searching for a solution to point out to our SysAdmins for a script that does the following in bulk for a specific folder, all subfolders and all files within a Sharepoint location:

• evaluate version date/hour of all files, while keeping always the 1st version, the later version of each day until a specific predefined date, delete all version in between.

Also, some unintended usage of a copy batch on a desktop synced hundreds of version copies with the exact same date/hour size for thousands of files that need to be deleted.

Is this possible by modifying this script?

Thanks in advance for any help.