Find all lookup fields that point to a List

Question

I have List X which needs simplifying. List X has 70 fields and I will split out about a third of the fields from List X and recreate them in List Y. After I can link the two lists, List Y will manage the Risk information. But are other parts of the SP farm currently using fields on List X? I don't have a way to check without painstakingly searching every list! I would need to find any lookup fields pointing at List X.

I need a cross-site collection search, since the are multiple site collections in the SP farm.

I have done some research and found this post which uses a powershell script which could perhaps be adapted? (I have no knowledge of powershell). It seems though that this script would only be able to search for a single field. Remember I'm trying to find all other lists in the site collection which have lookup fields pointing to List Y.

Any ideas?

Update - would using the GUID help?

Answer 1

Well, I ended up solving this myself the slow way by trawling other lists to check whether they are lookup anything from List X.

I was just reviewing my open questions, when I found a blog post by Mike Smith titled PowerShell: Finding all SharePoint Lists with Lookup Columns. I've not tried this out, I'm also not good with .ps, but looking at the code it looks promising.

It would at least 'shrink the net' of lists that need to be checked by flagging lists using look-up columns. Perhaps if you are good with .ps you could add some code to only find lists with look-ups pointing to List X.

I hope Mike doesn't mind me referencing him here for other Sharepoint users who have the same question as me.