Export every Dataverse solution with one PowerShell script

This script exports every unmanaged solution in a Dataverse environment and unzips each into its own folder. Commit them for a baseline; every later run shows what changed. Handy when you inherit an environment someone else built: the maker portal only exports one at a time.

What it does

Runs pac solution list against your active auth profile and saves it to solutions-list.txt.
Warns if line five doesn’t start with Unique Name: wrong environment, or the CLI output changed.
Skips managed solutions and Default, which can’t be exported.
Exports the rest with pac solution export --name (unmanaged by default).
Unzips each into a folder named after the solution and deletes the zip.

$skipExisting = $true at the top keeps folders you already have and only fetches new solutions. The default re-exports everything.

Before you run it

Install the Power Platform CLI.
pac auth create, then pac env select. Check pac env who: it runs against whatever’s active.
Run it in an empty folder, or one holding only earlier backups. It treats every subfolder as a solution.

The repo version

dataverse-solution-scanner does the same with more:

Multiple environments from config/environments.json, checked against a schema, into solutions/<name>/.
Keeps each zip under _backups, ready for pac solution import.
Unzips canvas apps (.msapp) too, so they diff.
Needs PowerShell 7.

Its security-scan.ps1 runs regex rules over the exports. It’s a demo, and the README says not to rely on it; use TruffleHog or Kingfisher.

What it misses

Unpublished changes. Exports only include published components. pac solution publish fixes that, but publishes everyone’s work in progress.
Anything only in Default.
Data. Solutions carry customisations, not records.
Tidy diffs. It uses Expand-Archive. pac solution unpack gives a file per component, which Microsoft prefers. For canvas apps only the *.pa.yaml under Src belong in source control.
A sturdy parser. It counts lines in a table meant for people. --json would be better.
Secret scrubbing. Exports can hold keys. Check before committing anywhere shared, or pasting into an AI tool.

For a development Managed Environment, Dataverse Git integration is the built-in way to keep solutions in an Azure DevOps Git repo, in a YAML format that diffs far better. Microsoft says dev only, not test or production. The script still works when you just want a copy of what’s there.