Monthly Archives: November 2025

Add a User to All AD Groups in an OU Using PowerShell

Managing Active Directory permissions can sometimes involve giving a user access to a large number of security groups — for example during onboarding, when changing someone’s role, or when granting temporary elevated access.
Doing this manually through Active Directory Users & Computers is time-consuming and error-prone.

PowerShell provides a clean and efficient way to automate the process.

In this post, I’ll show a small and elegant PowerShell script that:

  • Retrieves all groups inside a specific OU
  • Adds a chosen user as a member of each group
  • Outputs both successes and errors, so you know exactly what happened
Import-Module ActiveDirectory

$OU = "OU=Grupper,OU=Company,DC=domain,DC=local"
$User = "debie2dal"

Get-ADGroup -SearchBase $OU -Filter * | ForEach-Object {
    try {
        Add-ADGroupMember -Identity $_ -Members $User -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Host "OK: Added $User in $($_.Name)"
    }
    catch {
        Write-Host "Error in group $($_.Name): $($_.Exception.Message)"
    }
}

When This Script Is Useful

This simple script is extremely helpful in scenarios such as:

  • New employee onboarding
    Add a full set of role-based permissions in seconds.
  • Role changes
    Assign users to new group structures effortlessly.
  • Service accounts
    Grant access to multiple groups quickly and repeatably.
  • Environment cleanup
    Identify or replicate required group memberships.
  • Bulk operations
    Especially during system migrations or reorganisations.

Final Thoughts

PowerShell is a powerful tool for automating Active Directory tasks — and this small script can save a lot of time when managing group memberships across large environments. It reduces manual effort, eliminates repetitive clicking, and ensures consistent access assignments.

If you need help customizing this script for your organization or extending it with additional capabilities, feel free to reach out.