Empty Corporate OneDrive Recycle Bins from PowerShell

Question

I am looking for a simple method (possibly a PowerShell script) that will completely empty OneDrive recycle bins (incl. the secondary recycle bins) within a given URL [tenant]-my.sharepoint.com/personal/[username]; one user at-a-time is an okay solution, as we only need to do this in certain circumstances. I tried using SPO Management Shell, but the app told me that the OneDrive locations are not managed paths within SPO. Using the online interface will only handle 200 files at a time, with a 30 second processing time in between; sometimes we have upwards of 10,000 files in these recycle bins to remove, so this is not an appropriate method. Any ideas are appreciated. Thank you, in advance!

Answer 1

Just like willman said, use a script like the one below will clear all files in recycle bin.

$adminUPN="user account"
$userCredential = Get-Credential -UserName $adminUPN -Message "Type the password."
Connect-PnPOnline -Url <https://tenant-my.sharepoint.com/personal/username account> -Credentials $userCredential
Clear-PnPRecycleBinItem -All -force

the url in Connect-PnPOnline is the OneDrive URL

Answer 2

Clear-PnPRecycleBinItem with the Identity parameter set will delete a single specific item from the recycle bin (documentation here), and the -All parameter will delete all the items in the current site collection's recycle bin.

So assuming your script is running under a user account with the correct privileges, it should be able to connect-pnponline with the -url of the desired OneDrive, and clear it's recycle bin.

If you haven't used PnP PowerShell yet, the documentation starts here.