Learn how to retrieve deleted items with PnP PowerShell, filter the recycle bin, and restore them
The challenge
There is a recycle bin available for your site, but the filter / search options are limited.
Solution
We can use PowerShell 7 and the PnP PowerShell scripts to collect the deleted items, and thereafter filter the list
Connect to your site
If you don’t get any error after you have logged in, you are now connected to your site
Getting the Recycle Bin list
To get the list of deleted items, we are going to use the script that is documented here
Your can run this command directly
Or if you have many items, you can set a row limit by writing
Get-PnPRecycleBinItem -RowLimit 1000
Here is (a part of) the results from my site
Filtering your list
- Title
- ItemType
- LeafName
- DirName
To begin filtering the list in PowerShell, we will first create a variable by writing
Now we have created a variable called $recyclebin which now have the list of items – you can test it, by just writing $recyclebin in your console
Filter
Our next command is going to filter our variable ($recyclebin)
This command is taking the variable $recyclebin and asking it to return all objects where ItemType equals ListItem
We can shorten the list even further by adding more filters
There are many examples of how you can filter your list, and you can find a lot more here
In my example here I am down from 200 elements, to only 2
Restoring your item
After you have located the deleted item you want to restore, we can restore it by using another PnP PowerShell command
We are going to use Restore-PnPRecycleBinItem which is documented here
One of the objects that is returned is a unique Id, so we can restore a specific item by writing
We will confirm by writing Y
If I run the Get-PnPRecycleBinItem command again, and filter my items, I will only have one item left, since the second item has been restored
Now you know how to find and restore items that have been deleted by accident – are you ready to become a hero among your colleagues? 😉
PS. This is a very good example of why the Title column is a good idea to use when you are designing your site
