Bulk Move Users and Computers in Active Directory with PowerShell

Learn how to bulk move users and computer in Active Directory with Powershell.

You can use the get-aduser and get-adcomputer PowerShell commands to find accounts then pipe them to the move-adobject command.

Command and scripts are below:

Example 1: Move single user

Get-ADUser -Identity username | Move-ADObject -TargetPath "OU=Accounting,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com"

Example 2: Move all users from one OU to another OU

Get-ADUser -filter * -SearchBase "OU=Accounting,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com" | Move-ADObject -TargetPath "OU=Accounting-2,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com"

Example 3: Filter for specific users and move to an OU

In this example I'm finding all users that have "Marketing" set for the department field

get-aduser -filter {department -eq 'Marketing'} | move-adobject -targetpath "OU=Marketing-2,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com"

Example 4: Moving users from a CSV file

# Import the data from CSV file and assign it to variable

# Specify target OU where the users will be moved to
$TargetOU = "OU=Accounting,OU=ADPRO Users,DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com"

$Import_csv | ForEach-Object {

# Retrieve DN of User
$UserDN = (Get-ADUser -Identity $_.SamAccountName).distinguishedName

Write-Host "Moving Accounts....."

# Move user to target OU. Remove the -WhatIf parameter after you tested.
Move-ADObject -Identity $UserDN -TargetPath $TargetOU
}
Write-Host "Completed move"

Additional Notes:
1. The move-adobject -targetpath requires the distinguishedName of the OU
2. To move computer accounts use get-adcomputer instead of get-aduser
3. The csv file needs a column header. If you change it make sure to update the script to match the column.

More Active Directory tutorials, scripts and tools.

Export users to CSV GUI Tool

[supriyochatterjee]

Superb information, so so important and helpful, waiting for all kinds of technical troubleshooting videos related to Windows Server Migration, Active Directory Networking troubleshooting, Domain issues etc etc

[tojix]

Hi Whats the easiest way to track which security group should I add for a network drive, our active directory setup does not tell much. please help.

[kidschannel]

what about for moving bulk AD groups to different OU?

[_dj_dubz_]

Great video I am running into an error and I'm not sure if I did something wrong It says I don't have permission to move-adobject but if I can do it manually in the GUI is there a different permission required for Move-ADObject from a powershell script? I get this error for every computer object in my CSV but I confirmed that I can do a few of them manually in GUI.

Move-ADObject : Access is denied
At char:5
+ Move-ADObject -Identity $ComputerDN -TargetPath $targetou
+
+ CategoryInfo : PermissionDenied: [Move-ADObject], UnauthorizedAccessException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ActiveDirectoryCmdlet:System.UnauthorizedAccessException, Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.Commands.MoveADObject

is the script (minus my domain related information)
# Import the data from csv file and assign it to variable
$import_csv = Import-csv -path "C:\XXX\XXXcomputers.csv"

# Specify target OU where the users will be moved to
$targetou =

$import_csv | ForEach-object {

#retrieve DN of computer
$ComputerDN = (Get-adcomputer -Identity

write-host "Moving Accounts...."

# Move user to target OU. Remove the -WhatIF parameter after you tested.
Move-ADObject -Identity $ComputerDN -TargetPath $targetou
}
Write-Host "Completed move"

[girishdixit]

How to move multiple users to multiple OU ?

[dasoultube]

I have a list.. i'd like to move them all