RESOLVED: How to change Modern page Author from the "Created By" field to something else

Dear all,

I finally found how to do that change based on a PowerShell script.

This script will directly check the page list and for each item will check if the "Modified By" value is different than the "Created By", and check also if the "created by" account was not an admin (or system).

If yes, the item fields (Author, Creator) will be updated with the values "Modified By" and the Modified Date will be applied into all the fields using the same type.

You can easily adapt that script code if you need another logic, but the solution is working really well and I applied it in many Modern Page List.

[string]$SitePagesURL ="https://[yourtenant].sharepoint.com/sites/YourSiteColl/YourSubsite"
[string]$PageLibPublicName = "Site Pages"
[DateTime]$modifiedDate = Get-Date

[string]$DefaultEmailAddress = "PublisherEmail@yourdomain.com"
[string]$MyTempEmailAddress = ""

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function Load-DLLandAssemblies
{
	[string]$defaultDLLPath = ""

	# Load assemblies to PowerShell session 
	$defaultDLLPath = "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"
	[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile($defaultDLLPath)

	$defaultDLLPath = "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"
	[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile($defaultDLLPath)

	$defaultDLLPath = "C:\Program Files\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.Client.Tenant.dll"
	[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile($defaultDLLPath)
}

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Function Get-All-PageList-UpdateMetadata($MyctxTemp, $MyspoRootwebTemp)
{
	$Alllists = $MyspoRootwebTemp.Lists
	$MyPagelist = $Alllists.GetByTitle($PageLibPublicName)

	$MyQuery = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.CamlQuery;
	$MyQuery.ViewXml = "<View><Query><OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Modified' Ascending='FALSE'></FieldRef></OrderBy></Query><RowLimit>9999</RowLimit></View>"
	$MyPagelistItems = $MyPagelist.GetItems($MyQuery);

	$MyctxTemp.load($MyPagelistItems)
	$MyctxTemp.executeQuery()
	
	foreach($PageItem in $MyPagelistItems)
	{
		Write-Host ""
		Write-Host ""
		Write-Host "   --------------------------------------------------------- "
<#	
		foreach($MyFieldval in $PageItem.FieldValues)
		{
			Write-Host "     >>> FieldName:", $MyFieldval
		}
#>
		$modifiedDate = $PageItem["Modified"]
		$ModifiedByuser = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FieldUserValue]$PageItem["Editor"]
		$CreatedByuser = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FieldUserValue]$PageItem["Author"]
		Write-Host "ID:", $PageItem["ID"], "- Title:", $PageItem["Title"], "- Original Publication Date:", $modifiedDate.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy")
		Write-Host "           ==>>> PromotedState:", $PageItem["PromotedState"], "- PageLayoutType:", $PageItem["PageLayoutType"] -ForegroundColor red
		
		Write-Host "   >> Description:", $PageItem["Description"] 
		Write-Host "   >> BannerImageUrl:", $PageItem["BannerImageUrl"].URL, "- URLDesc:", $PageItem["BannerImageUrl"].Description
		Write-Host "   >> ContentTypeId:", $PageItem["ContentTypeId"] 

		if ($ModifiedByuser.LookupId -ne  $CreatedByuser.LookupId)
		{
			Write-Host "       ===> Modified by:", $ModifiedByuser.LookupValue, " - ", $ModifiedByuser.Email ,"[", $ModifiedByuser.LookupId, "]" -ForegroundColor green
			Write-Host "       ===> Created by:", $CreatedByuser.LookupValue, " - ", $CreatedByuser.Email ,"[", $CreatedByuser.LookupId, "]" -ForegroundColor green

			if($ModifiedByuser.Email -ne "")
			{
				$MyTempEmailAddress = $ModifiedByuser.Email
			}
			else
			{
				$MyTempEmailAddress = $DefaultEmailAddress #Admin Account to reset with the default one
			}
			$MyEditoruserAccount = $MyspoRootwebTemp.EnsureUser("i:0#.f|membership|$($MyTempEmailAddress)");
			$MyctxTemp.load($MyEditoruserAccount)
			$MyctxTemp.executeQuery()
			Write-Host "                ===> Modified Account Login:", $MyEditoruserAccount.LoginName -ForegroundColor Magenta

			$PageItem["Modified"] = $modifiedDate;
			$PageItem["Created"] = $modifiedDate;
			$PageItem["FirstPublishedDate"] = $modifiedDate;
			$PageItem["Created_x0020_By"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.LoginName
			$PageItem["Modified_x0020_By"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.LoginName
			$PageItem["Editor"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.Id;
			$PageItem["Author"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.Id
			$PageItem.Update()
			$MyctxTemp.ExecuteQuery()
		}
		else
		{
			Write-Host "       ===> Modified by:", $ModifiedByuser.LookupValue, " - ", $ModifiedByuser.Email ,"[", $ModifiedByuser.LookupId, "]" -ForegroundColor red
			Write-Host "       ===> Created by:", $CreatedByuser.LookupValue, " - ", $CreatedByuser.Email ,"[", $CreatedByuser.LookupId, "]" -ForegroundColor red

			if($ModifiedByuser.Email -eq "") #Admin Account to reset with the default one
			{
				$MyTempEmailAddress = $DefaultEmailAddress
				$MyEditoruserAccount = $MyspoRootwebTemp.EnsureUser("i:0#.f|membership|$($MyTempEmailAddress)");
				$MyctxTemp.load($MyEditoruserAccount)
				$MyctxTemp.executeQuery()
				Write-Host "                ===> Modified Account Login:", $MyEditoruserAccount.LoginName -ForegroundColor Magenta

				$PageItem["Modified"] = $modifiedDate;
				$PageItem["Created"] = $modifiedDate;
				$PageItem["FirstPublishedDate"] = $modifiedDate;
				$PageItem["Created_x0020_By"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.LoginName
				$PageItem["Modified_x0020_By"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.LoginName
				$PageItem["Editor"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.Id;
				$PageItem["Author"] = $MyEditoruserAccount.Id
				$PageItem.Update()
				$MyctxTemp.ExecuteQuery()			
			}
		}
		Write-Host "   --------------------------------------------------------- "
	}  
}


# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Load-DLLandAssemblies

#get and save your O365 credentials
[string]$username = "adminAccount@[yourtenant].onmicrosoft.com"
[string]$PwdTXTPath = "C:\SECUREDPWD\ExportedPWD-$($username).txt"
$secureStringPwd = ConvertTo-SecureString -string (Get-Content $PwdTXTPath)
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $username, $secureStringPwd

#connect to the web site using the stored credentials
Write-host " "
Write-host " -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " -ForegroundColor green
Write-host " ---- CONNECT THE SITE --- " -ForegroundColor green
Write-host "   CONNECTED SITE:", $SitePagesURL  -ForegroundColor Yellow

$Myctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($SitePagesURL)

$Myctx.Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($cred.UserName,$cred.Password)
$Myctx.RequestTimeout = 1000000 # milliseconds
$MyspoRootweb = $Myctx.Web
$Myctx.Load($MyspoRootweb)
$Myctx.ExecuteQuery()

Write-Host " "
Write-Host " ---------------------------------------------------------"
Write-Host "  >>>> # Server Version:" $Myctx.ServerVersion " # <<<<<<" -ForegroundColor Green 
Write-Host " ---------------------------------------------------------"
Write-Host " "

Write-host " -------------------------------------------------------- "
Write-host "   -->> RootSite:", $MyspoRootweb.URL -ForegroundColor green

Write-host " "

Get-All-PageList-UpdateMetadata $Myctx $MyspoRootweb

Thanks all for your help.

French version of the article:

• SharePoint: Comment changer le nom “Auteur” dans les pages modernes

Fabrice Romelard