Copy files from specific SP folder every morning from client

Question

Context

Using PowerShell, I was hoping to schedule a task to pull down files from specific folders on SharePoint automatically every morning. It seems fairly simple, but I cannot even manage to connect to the SharePoint. The SharePoint is located online, and I login with my Active Directory information.

I have PowerShell and have been running PowerShell ISE. I also have the SharePoint Online Management Shell and SharePoint Client Components installed.

The first code I try is:

$fromfile = "https://domain.com/sites/project/Shared%20Documents/folder1/folderA/test.pdf"
$tofile   = "C:\test.pdf"
$webclient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$webclient.UseDefaultCredentials = $true
$webclient.DownloadFile($fromfile, $tofile)

But I get a 403 forbidden error. My guess is it has something to do with my credentials. I tried another code, this time using the SharePoint shell features:

$fromsite = "https://domain.com/sites/project"

$fromfile = "Shared%20Documents/folder1/folderA/test.pdf"
$tofile   = "C:\test.pdf"

$web = Get-SPWeb $fromsite
$file = $web.GetFile($fromfile)
$filebytes = $file.OpenBinary()

$filestream = New-Object System.IO.FileStream($tofile, "Create")
$binarywriter = New-Object System.IO.BinaryWriter($filestream)
$binarywriter.write($filebytes)
$binarywriter.Close()

This gives me there error: Get-SPWeb : The term 'Get-SPWeb' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

So then I try running:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Sharepoint.Powershell

But then I get Add-PSSnapin : No snap-ins have been registered for Windows PowerShell version 4. So for good measure I check the following

Get-PSSnapin -Registered

Unsurprisingly, the list is blank. This means that I need to somehow register those Snapins. This leads me to this site: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/opal/2010/03/07/sharepoint-2010-with-windows-powershell-remoting-step-by-step/

I have followed everything successfully, until Get-WSManCredSSP. I get this response: The machine is not configured to allow delegating fresh credentials. This computer is configured to receive credentials from a remote client computer.. So I followed everything on here https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/hh751273.aspx and I cannot figure out where to go from here.

Request

• Is there a better way to write a script to pull these files? Perhaps one that wouldn't cause any of these issues?
• If not, how can I get SharePoint functionality in PowerShell? How can I get the SharePoint snap-ins to be registered?

Thank you for your help!

Answer 1

I was unable to get it to work using PowerShell with this method. I believe it's because I am not running the commands on the SharePoint server itself.

Instead, I created a batch script with the following:

net use X: "\\sharepoint.site@SSL\DavWWWRoot\sites\project\Shared Documents\folder 1\folder 2"
robocopy "X:" %dest% /LEV:2 /s 

(%dest% being a variable I defined earlier)

Answer 2

Try to add X-FORMS_BASED_AUTH_ACCEPTED header with f value using following code: $webclient.Headers.Add("X-FORMS_BASED_AUTH_ACCEPTED", "f") before executing $webclient.DownloadFile().

According to Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell snap-in and Get-SPWeb cmdlet - they can be used only directly on SharePoint server.