Commands / Help and discovery

PS> Unblock-File -Path .\script.ps1

Works on

WindowsmacOS

PowerShell

5.1 and later

Reference

Microsoft Learn: Unblock-File

• PowerShell 7 Also works on macOS, where it removes the quarantine mark from downloaded files. Not available on Linux.

When you download a file, Windows tags it as coming from the internet. Under the usual RemoteSigned execution policy, PowerShell refuses to run a tagged .ps1 and says it "is not digitally signed."

Unblock-File removes that tag. It does not change your execution policy, and it only affects the files you name.

Read the script before you unblock it. The tag is there to make you stop and look.

Common parameters

• -Path takes wildcards, so .\*.ps1 unblocks every script in the folder.
• -WhatIf shows which files it would unblock.

Try this

Get-ChildItem -Path .\downloads -Filter *.ps1 | Unblock-File -WhatIf

You can also right-click the file in Explorer, choose Properties, and tick Unblock.

Related commands

• Set-ExecutionPolicy Allow scripts to run on this computer
• Get-FileHash Check a file's hash (checksum)
• Get-LocalUser List local user accounts
• Write-Output Print a message (Write-Output vs Write-Host)
• Get-ExecutionPolicy See whether scripts are allowed to run

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