How To Import User Pictures in Exchange Online

In a recent thread on the PowerShell.org forum, Jeremy Miller asked how to import user pictures in bulk in Exchange Online. I was providing some answers to Jeremy, and he asked me to explain the logic behind the solution (the one that worked for him actually). So I will try to explain it here.

$imageFolder = 'C:\Temp\Images\'
$pictures = Get-ChildItem $imageFolder
foreach ($picture in $pictures){
    Try {
        $user = Get-User -Identity $($picture.BaseName) -ErrorAction Stop
        }
    Catch {
        Write-Warning "Warning: $_"
    }
    If ($user) {
        $user | Set-UserPhoto -PictureData ([System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("$imageFolder\$($picture.Name)"))
    }
}

Annotations

• Line 1: The path to the pictures is assigned to the variable $imageFolder
• Line 2: The contents of the directory in the $imageFolder variable is assigned to the variable $pictures. This variable is of the type System.Array:
• Lines 4-17: An foreach loop is being used here to iterate through each picture. This because on every picture an action will be performed.
• Lines 6-12: I’m using a Try/Catch construction here, because I want to keep the foreach loop going; even when a user does not exists in Exchange Online. If a user exists, then the resulting user object is being assigned to the variable $user. If not, the the Try/Catch construct is throwing a error and continues with the next user.
• Line 7: Here I’m searching for a user in Exchange Online. I feed the parameter Identity the BaseName of the $picture variable. BaseName is just the filename, without the extension. Jeremy was having picture files in his folder names like the SamAccountNames. So $($picture.BaseName) will give back the SamAccountName in Jeremy’s situation. Get-User takes in the SamAccountName as value for the Identity parameter, and will therefore find (or not) find the user in Exchange Online.
• Line 11: If a user cannot be found, the error message from the Get-User Cmdlet will be shown on in the shell. $_ means, ‘current object in the pipeline’.
• Line 14-16: If the $user variable contains something, we will execute Set-UserPhoto to assign a picture to the user. $user is being piped to Set-UserPhoto, so that I don’t have to specify the -Identity parameter of the Set-UserPhoto Cmdlet. -Identity takes in values by property name. So where the piped object contains any value accepted by the parameter Identity, the Set-UserPhoto will execute the action on the user in Exchange Online.

Sample Usage

Set-UserPhoto "Paul Cannon" -PictureData ([System.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\PaulCannon.jpg"))

• Get-Help Set-UserPhoto -Full
• Get-Help about_Try_Catch_Finally
• Get-Help about_ForEach
• Get-Help about_If

I hope this helps!