Block Microsoft 365 user accounts with PowerShell

Article
09/29/2022
3 minutes to read

This article applies to both Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Office 365 Enterprise.

When you block access to a Microsoft 365 account, you prevent anyone from using the account to sign in and access the services and data in your Microsoft 365 organization. You can use PowerShell to block access to individual or multiple user accounts.

Use the Azure Active Directory PowerShell for Graph module

First, connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Block access to individual user accounts

Use the following syntax to block an individual user account:

Set-AzureADUser -ObjectID <sign-in name of the user account> -AccountEnabled $false

Note

The -ObjectID parameter in the Set-AzureAD cmdlet accepts either the account sign-in name, also known as the User Principal Name, or the account's object ID.

This example blocks access to the user account fabricec@litwareinc.com.

Set-AzureADUser -ObjectID fabricec@litwareinc.com -AccountEnabled $false

To unblock this user account, run the following command:

Set-AzureADUser -ObjectID fabricec@litwareinc.com -AccountEnabled $true

To display the user account UPN based on the user's display name, use the following commands:

$userName="<display name>"
Write-Host (Get-AzureADUser | where {$_.DisplayName -eq $userName}).UserPrincipalName

This example displays the user account UPN for the user Caleb Sills.

$userName="Caleb Sills"
Write-Host (Get-AzureADUser | where {$_.DisplayName -eq $userName}).UserPrincipalName

To block an account based on the user's display name, use the following commands:

$userName="<display name>"
Set-AzureADUser -ObjectID (Get-AzureADUser | where {$_.DisplayName -eq $userName}).UserPrincipalName -AccountEnabled $false

To check the blocked status of a user account use the following command:

Get-AzureADUser  -ObjectID <UPN of user account> | Select DisplayName,AccountEnabled

Block multiple user accounts

To block access for multiple user accounts, create a text file that contains one account sign-in name on each line like this:

akol@contoso.com
tjohnston@contoso.com
kakers@contoso.com

In the following commands, the example text file is C:\My Documents\Accounts.txt. Replace this file name with the path and file name of your text file.

To block access to the accounts listed in the text file, run the following command:

Get-Content "C:\My Documents\Accounts.txt" | ForEach {Set-AzureADUser -ObjectID $_ -AccountEnabled $false}

To unblock the accounts that are listed in the text file, run the following command:

Get-Content "C:\My Documents\Accounts.txt" | ForEach {Set-AzureADUser -ObjectID $_ -AccountEnabled $true}

Use the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell

First, connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Block individual user accounts

Use the following syntax to block access for an individual user account:

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <sign-in name of user account>  -BlockCredential $true

Note

PowerShell Core doesn't support the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell module and cmdlets that have Msol in their name. You have to run these cmdlets from Windows PowerShell.

This example blocks access to the user account fabricec@litwareinc.com.

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName fabricec@litwareinc.com -BlockCredential $true

To unblock the user account, run the following command:

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <sign-in name of user account>  -BlockCredential $false

To check the blocked status of a user account run the following command:

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <sign-in name of user account> | Select DisplayName,BlockCredential

Block access for multiple user accounts

First, create a text file that contains one account on each line like this:

akol@contoso.com
tjohnston@contoso.com
kakers@contoso.com

In the following commands, the example text file is C:\My Documents\Accounts.txt. Replace this file name with the path and file name of your text file.

To block access for the accounts that are listed in the text file, run the following command:

Get-Content "C:\My Documents\Accounts.txt" | ForEach { Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_ -BlockCredential $true }

To unblock the accounts listed in the text file, run the following command:

Get-Content "C:\My Documents\Accounts.txt" | ForEach { Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_ -BlockCredential $false }