How to set an Office365 user Password to never expire with PowerShell

Occasionally we’ll be required to set a user account on Office365 to never expire. It’s not advisable to perform this action, as a compromised account who’s passwords never expires can be a liability. However, in some cases a utility account such as a scanner/copier or kiosk account may require a password that does not change. The following tutorial will show you how to set an Office365 password to never expire using PowerShell.

First, we’ll want to ensure that the account password is not already set to expire and we want to confirm it’s status. Using PowerShell we can get information about an Office365 user account password expiration status.

1. Connect to Microsoft Online Services with PowerShell by running the following commands:

Import-Module MSOnline
Connect-MsolService

2. Next, replace <UserID> with the user account (email address) of the user’s properties we want to get with the following command:

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <user ID> | Select PasswordNeverExpires

Our result should look like the following:

3. Because we get the message returned that the property PasswordNeverExpires = False, we want set it to $True and set the account password to never expire with the following command:

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <[email protected]> -PasswordNeverExpires $true

Again, change the <[email protected]> identifier to the email address of the account you want to change. Our result will not produce an output:

4. To verify the account password will no longer expire, we’ll run our first command again to see the result:

Get-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName <user ID> | Select PasswordNeverExpires

Our result should look similar to the following:

Because our PasswordNeverExpires property is now set to True, our task is complete. Disconnect from Office365 and close powershell by entering the command: exit.

Solved – Cannot move files in SharePoint Online Office 365 from one folder to another folder

When attempting to move files in SharePoint Online Office365 from one folder to another you may find that you get errors or the moving process times out or fails with the error:

Error: We couldn't move the file because it's locked for editing or has been modified or deleted.

What has happened is some of the files in these folders have been marked as “checked out” or “locked”. This may have been done erroneously by a user or the status was corrupted when the files were originally uploaded into SharePoint.

Once the files are checked in, you can move them. As an alternative to moving the files, you may also be able to “Copy To…”, and then delete the original files. Again, you may not be able to delete the files you copied because the files you want to delete in SharePoint may also be locked or checked-out.

This is what worked for me:

  1. Use your favorite web browser and log into your SharePoint site (e.g. https://companyname.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename.
  2. Browse to the problem folders that contain files that you cannot move to another folder.
  3. In the folders, you should find files that are “checked out”. The files will have a green arrow icon next to the file icon.  
  4. Place a checkmark next to the file that is checked out.
  5. In the menu at the top-right choose “…”
  6. In the “…” menu, click “Discard check out”
  7. Now try moving the file with the following sequence:
  8. If the problem files are Word/Excel files, you may need to Open the files in Word or Excel first, in order to check them back in.