Maintain security group membership with PowerShell
This article applies to both Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Office 365 Enterprise.
You can use PowerShell for Microsoft 365 as an alternative to the Microsoft 365 admin center to maintain security group membership in Microsoft 365.
Note
Learn how to maintain Microsoft 365 group membership with the Microsoft 365 admin center. For a list of additional resources, see Manage users and groups.
Use the Azure Active Directory PowerShell for Graph module
First, connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant.
Add or remove user accounts as members of a group
Note
Azure AD and MSOnline PowerShell modules are deprecated as of March 30, 2024. To learn more, read the deprecation update. After this date, support for these modules are limited to migration assistance to Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK and security fixes. The deprecated modules will continue to function through March, 30 2025.
We recommend migrating to Microsoft Graph PowerShell to interact with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). For common migration questions, refer to the Migration FAQ. Note: Versions 1.0.x of MSOnline may experience disruption after June 30, 2024.
To add a user account by its UPN, fill in the user account User Principal Name (UPN) (example: belindan@contoso.com) and the security group display name, removing the “<” and “>” characters, and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell Integrated Script Environment (ISE).
$userUPN="<UPN of the user account to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Add-AzureADGroupMember -RefObjectId (Get-AzureADUser | Where { $_.UserPrincipalName -eq $userUPN }).ObjectID -ObjectId (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To add a user account by its display name, fill in the user account display name (example: Belinda Newman) and the group display name and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userName="<display name of the user account to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Add-AzureADGroupMember -RefObjectId (Get-AzureADUser | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $userName }).ObjectID -ObjectId (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To remove a user account by its UPN, fill in the user account UPN (example: belindan@contoso.com) and the group display name and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userUPN="<UPN of the user account to remove>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Remove-AzureADGroupMember -MemberId (Get-AzureADUser | Where { $_.UserPrincipalName -eq $userUPN }).ObjectID -ObjectID (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To remove a user account by its display name, fill in the user account display name (example: Belinda Newman) and the group display name and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userName="<display name of the user account to remove>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Remove-AzureADGroupMember -MemberId (Get-AzureADUser | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $userName }).ObjectID -ObjectID (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
Add or remove groups as members of a group
Security groups can contain other groups as members. Microsoft 365 groups, however, cannot. This section contains PowerShell commands to add or remove groups only for a security group.
To add a group by its display name, fill in the display name of the group you’re going to add and the display name of the group that will contain the member group and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$groupMemberName="<display name of the group to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group that will contain the member group>"
Add-AzureADGroupMember -RefObjectId (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupMemberName }).ObjectID -ObjectID (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To remove a group by its display name, fill in the display name of the group you’re going to remove and the display name of the group that will contain the member group and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$groupMemberName="<display name of the group to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group that will contain the member group>"
Remove-AzureADGroupMember -MemberId (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupMemberName }).ObjectID -ObjectID (Get-AzureADGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
Use the Microsoft Azure Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell
First, connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant.
Add or remove user accounts as members of a group
To add a user account by its UPN, fill in the user account User Principal Name (UPN) (example: belindan@contoso.com) and the group display name, removing the “<” and “>” characters, and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userUPN="<UPN of the user account to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Add-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId (Get-MsolUser | Where { $_.UserPrincipalName -eq $userUPN }).ObjectID -GroupObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To add a user account by its display name, fill in the user account display name (example: Belinda Newman) and the group display name and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userName="<display name of the user account to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Add-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId (Get-MsolUser | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $userName }).ObjectID -GroupObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To remove a user account by its UPN, fill in the user account UPN (example: belindan@contoso.com) and the group display name and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userUPN="<UPN of the user account to remove>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Remove-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId (Get-MsolUser | Where { $_.UserPrincipalName -eq $userUPN }).ObjectID -GroupObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
To remove a user account by its display name, fill in the user account display name (example: Belinda Newman) and the group display name and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$userName="<display name of the user account to remove>"
$groupName="<display name of the group>"
Remove-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId (Get-MsolUser | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $userName }).ObjectID -GroupObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID
Add or remove groups as members of a group
Security groups can contain other groups as members. Microsoft 365 groups, however, cannot. This section contains PowerShell commands to add or remove groups only for a security group.
To add a group by its display name, fill in the display name of the group you’re going to add and the display name of the group that will contain the member group and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$groupMemberName="<display name of the group to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group that will contain the member group>"
Add-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupMemberName }).ObjectID -GroupObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID -GroupMemberType Group
To remove a group by its display name, fill in the display name of the group you’re going to remove and the display name of the group that will contain the member group and run these commands in the PowerShell window or the PowerShell ISE.
$groupMemberName="<display name of the group to add>"
$groupName="<display name of the group contains the member group>"
Remove-MsolGroupMember -GroupMemberObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupMemberName }).ObjectID -GroupObjectId (Get-MsolGroup | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $groupName }).ObjectID -GroupMemberType Group
See also
Manage Microsoft 365 user accounts, licenses, and groups with PowerShell
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