Grant and revoke admin access to a user's OneDrive

As an administrator, it's crucial to manage admin access to a User's OneDrive, especially when an employee departs from your organization. You may need to access their OneDrive, back it up, and decide whether to transfer it to another employee.

This article will guide you through several methods for granting or revoking OneDrive admin access. We will explore how to use the Office 365 admin center, PowerShell, and CoreView for these tasks.

1. Using Office 365 Admin Center:

• Sign in to the admin center using your global admin or SharePoint admin credentials.
• In the left pane, navigate to “Admin centers > SharePoint”, If you don't see the list of admin centers, click on “Show all”,
• From the same left pane, select “More features”. If you see the classic SharePoint admin center, click on “Open it now” at the top of the page to switch to the SharePoint Modern admin center.
  
• Under “User profiles”, select “Open”.  
  
• Under “People”, select “Manage User Profiles”.  
  
• Enter the former employee's name and select “Find”.  
  
• Right-click the user, and then select “Manage site collection owners”.  
  
• Add the user to “Site Collection Administrators” and select “OK”.  
  
• The user will now be able to access the former employee's OneDrive using the OneDrive URL.

2. Using PowerShell

Here's the PowerShell Script for granting access:

Connect-SPOService https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential Get-Credential

                                                                                #Use your SharePoint admin URL in above cmdlet
                                                                                

Set-SPOUser -Site https://contoso-my.sharepoint.com/personal/Smartuser1_contoso_com -LoginName Smartuser2@contoso.com -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $true
                                                                                #This will grant admin access to 'Smartuser2' for OneDrive of 'Smartuser1'.
                                                                                

Here's the PowerShell Script for revoking access:

Connect-SPOService https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential Get-Credential
                                                                                #Use your SharePoint admin URL in above cmdlet
                                                                                

Remove-SPOUser -Site https://contoso-my.sharepoint.com/personal/Smartuser1_contoso_com -LoginName Smartuser2@contoso.com
                                                                                #This will remove 'Smartuser2' from OneDrive of 'Smartuser1'

3. Using CoreView

Utilizing CoreView simplifies the process of granting and revoking admin access to any OneDrive account. The advantage is that you don't need to be a Global admin or SharePoint admin to perform this action. Let's walk through the steps:

• Log in to the CoreView portal
• Select “Actions > Management actions > OneDrive”. Alternatively, you can use the Search bar to find the action
   
• From the list of management actions, select “Manage OneDrive Owners”.
• Choose the user whose admin access you want to manage from the provided list, then click “Next”.
   
• From the “Set properties” tab, add users as owners by simply typing their names. As you type, a dropdown list will appear, showing the matching users.  
  
• Once you've added the user, click “Next”. Review the information and finalize the process by clicking “Submit”.