Use PowerShell to add and remove items in the Quick Launch menu on a SharePoint 2013 site

Here's a quick snippet of PowerShell that demonstrates adding menu items to the Quick Launch menu in a SharePoint 2013 site.

The example is based on a newly added Business Intelligence site, though the code will work on any site. The goal is to remove the existing quick launch menu items, and replace them with a list of report document libraries, grouped under a heading called, "Reports".

The original site looks like this:

The following PowerShell adds a list of links (to the report lists) onto the quick launch menu. Note that the new menu items are defined in the $listsToAddToNav array.

#SharePoint site url            
$weburl = "http://devhv131/sites/bi"            
#An array of SharePoint lists that you want to add to the navigation menu            
$listsToAddToNav = @('Building Management','Capital Programmes','Employee Services','Financial','General Reports','Payroll','Property','Purchasing');            
            
#Get the SPWeb object for the site url            
$w = get-spweb $weburl            
#Get the quick launch menu            
$ql = $w.Navigation.QuickLaunch;            
#Create the root node that all the lists will be displayed under.            
$n = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPNavigationNode("Reports","",$true);            
#Add the new node to the quick launch menu            
$n = $ql.AddAsFirst($n);             
#Add all the lists as new child nodes, to the "Reports" node            
foreach($list in $listsToAddToNav)            
{            
    #Create a new child node, for the current folder. The URL of the folder is constructed using the name of the folder, and the web URL            
 $cn = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation.SPNavigationNode($list,([String]::Format("{0}/{1}",$w.Url,$list.Replace(" ","%20"))),$true);             
    #Add the childnode to the parent node, which in this case, is the "Reports" navigation node.             
    #Add the child as the "last node". As the nodes being added are in alphabetical order, this will preserve the node order, as A-Z            
    $n.Children.AddAsLast($cn);            
    #Update (save) the navigation            
 $w.Update()            
}

After running the PowerShell above, the new menu items have been added.

This next bit of PowerShell removes the unwanted menu items from the quick launch. Note that the unwanted menu items are defined in the $nodesToDelete array.

#Create an array of nodes that you want to delete. The array contains the node names.        
$nodesToDelete = @('Dashboards','Data Connections','PerformancePoint Content','Recent','Libraries')            
#For each node, delete it from the Quick Launch menu            
foreach($dnname in $nodesToDelete)            
{            
 #Get the node            
 $dn = $w.Navigation.QuickLaunch | where { $_.Title -eq $dnname }            
 if($dn -eq $null){continue;}            
 Write-Host "Deleting navigation node, $dnname"            
    #If the node wasn't null, delete it!             
 $ql.Delete($dn);            
    #Update (save) the navigation            
 $w.Update();            
}

Finally, with the unwanted navigation menu items removed, the site now looks the way we want it!