Fixing Checked Out Files

Alexis Daniel

Updated On: April 01, 2026

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Fixing Checked Out Files

I ran into a challenge this evening with a monstrously large library filled with 5,000+ folders with 47,000+ files.

What to do?

Firstly, things don’t work correctly until the list view threshold is temporarily lifted. Once that is done, we can iterate through the files, take the checked out ones over, and force the check in.

Here’s how:

$root = get-spweb "ht tp://SharePoint/sites/site"
$lib = $root.lists["LibraryName"]
$x = $lib.CheckedOutFiles
$count = $x.Count
for ($i=$count-1; $i -ge 0; $i--)
{
$Checkeditem = $x.get_Item($i)
$Checkeditem.TakeOverCheckOut()
 
$libitem = $lib.GetItemById($Checkeditem.listitemid)
$libitem.File.CheckIn("")
Write-Host -NoNewline "."
}