How to remove unwanted file extension in SharePoint document library

Question

Hello and thanks in advance for the help. I am attempting to remove extra extensions that were unintentionally added to documents in multiple SharePoint libraries. When i manually remove the extension ".easy2lock" the file becomes available. However, when i try to do this programmatically via powershell and mapping the library to a network drive it works, but not for folders with paths greater than 256. Does anyone know how to get around this in powershell or using SharePoint API/management shell?

These all work but not for paths greater than 256:

[string]$BadExtension = ".easy2lock"





Get-ChildItem -Filter "*$BadExtension" -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace $BadExtension, [string]::Empty}







Get-ChildItem -Filter *$BadExtension -Recurse | ForEach-Object {

    Rename-Item -LiteralPath "\\?\$($_.FullName)" -NewName ($_.name -replace $BadExtension)

}



Get-ChildItem -Filter *$BadExtension -Recurse | ForEach-Object {

    Rename-Item -LiteralPath "\\?\$($_.FullName)" -NewName $_.basename

}



Get-ChildItem -Filter "*$BadExtension" -Recurse |

    Select-Object Name,@{n='LiteralPath';e={"\\?\$($_.fullname)"}} |

        Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace $BadExtension}



Get-ChildItem -Filter "*$BadExtension" -Recurse |

    Select-Object Basename,@{n='LiteralPath';e={"\\?\$($_.fullname)"}} |

        Rename-Item -NewName {$_.baseName}

Answer 1

Hi @Watson, Adam ,

Do you have to rename the targeted files through the mapping drive? Is it acceptable to use pnp powershell?

#Set Variables  
$SiteURL = "https://abc.sharepoint.com/sites/s01"  
   
#Connect to PNP Online  
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -UseWebLogin  
  
$files= Find-PnPFile -List "Documents" -Match *.png  
  
foreach ($f in $files) {  
    $f.ServerRelativeUrl   
  
    $name= '0'+ $f.Name  // rename it with your own name  
  
    Rename-PnPFile -TargetFileName $name -ServerRelativeUrl $f.ServerRelativeUrl  
}  

Or

• https://www.m365-dev.com/2020/05/14/find-sharepoint-documents-by-file-extension/

Best Regards,
Baker Kong

---

If an Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, there is no way to get around the limitation, but there is a tool that gives you to shorten files and folders, and if it can't, will rename the file/folder to something like "Invalid".

below links for reference: https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA104368123?src=office&corrid=dd39653d-2740-477c-ad9f-342916a68789&omexanonuid=fdaa34dd-a85a-4bc0-9f92-22fb16ec2816&referralurl=https%3a%2f%2fsocial.msdn.microsoft.com%2f

https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA104047361?src=office&corrid=34803069-1e0b-462b-9983-64d25cad7b7f&omexanonuid=3c76ec85-5dd7-4226-9607-653fed10290a&referralurl=https%3a%2f%2fsocial.msdn.microsoft.com%2f

Thanks & Regards,

Answer 3

I believe in CA you can define blocked file types in the Security section of CA. Hopefully, after the breach the file types were immediately added to the block list.

You might be able to get around the limit by using search, provided it has been configured and is running smoothly.

This link is for SP2013 but it should be a similar PS script to run a search on later versions of SharePoint: https://nikcharlebois.com/get-search-results-in-sharepoint-2013-using-powershell/

The search query you would want to use would be something like: Filename:*.easy2lock

Answer 4

PNP powershell would be acceptable. I will give this a shot. Will this be able to surpass the SharePoint limitations for renaming files greater than 256 characters? My other solutions are blocked by both windows OS as well as sharepoint. I will give this a try nonetheless and get back to you. thakns!

Answer 5

This worked thanks BakeKong so much!
$SiteURL = "https://Mydomain-my.sharepoint.com/sites/mysitecollection"
[string]$DeleteBadExtension = ".easy2lock_read_me"
[string]$BadExtension = ".easy2lock"

Connect to PNP Online

Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteURL -UseWebLogin
$renamefiles= Find-PnPFile -List "Documents" -Match *.easy2lock
foreach ($f in $renamefiles) {
$f.ServerRelativeUrl
$name = '0'+ $f.Name
echo "Rename :"$name
$Newvalue = $name -replace ".easy2lock"
Rename-PnPFile -TargetFileName $Newvalue -ServerRelativeUrl $f.ServerRelativeUrl -force
#Remove-PnPFile -TargetFileName $Newvalue -ServerRelativeUrl $f.ServerRelativeUrl
}
$removefiles= Find-PnPFile -List "Documents" -Match *.easy2lock_read_me
foreach ($f in $removefiles) {
$f.ServerRelativeUrl
$delname = '0'+ $f.Name
echo "Del NAme :" $delname
#$deleteFileValue = $name -replace ".easy2lock_read_me"
Remove-PnPFile -ServerRelativeUrl $f.ServerRelativeUrl -Force
}