How to force Intune Sync using Powershell

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One of the essential tasks in Intune is to synchronize policies and profiles between devices and Microsoft Intune service. While Intune automatically syncs these updates periodically, there may be times when you need to force a sync manually.

You can either go to Settings App on your windows device or use microsoft Intune admin enter to force initiate the sync. For more details on how to perform this you can check out How to force Intune Sync manually from a Windows device.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how to force an Intune Sync using PowerShell and Microsoft Graph. Using Microsoft Graph APIs, we can manage organization’s devices which are enrolled into Intune including invoking sync on those devices.

Let’s first check the default Intune policy refresh frequency duration.

Intune default Policy refresh frequency

Devices check in with Intune when they receive a notification to check in, or during the scheduled check-in. Below is the default Intune Policy refresh frequency / scheduled check-in along with Device Type.

Device TypeRefresh Cycle
iOS/iPadOS~ 8 Hours
macOS~ 8 Hours
Android~ 8 Hours
Windows 10/11 PCs enrolled as devices~ 8 Hours
Windows 8.1~ 8 Hours
Source: Microsoft

Below is the default Intune Policy refresh frequency if the device is recently enrolled:

Device TypeRefresh Cycle / Frequency
iOS/iPadOSEvery 15 minutes for 1 hour, and then around every 8 hours
macOSEvery 15 minutes for 1 hour, and then around every 8 hours
AndroidEvery 3 minutes for 15 minutes, then every 15 minutes for 2 hours, and then around every 8 hours
Windows 10/11 PCs enrolled as devicesEvery 3 minutes for 15 minutes, then every 15 minutes for 2 hours, and then around every 8 hours
Windows 8.1Every 5 minutes for 15 minutes, then every 15 minutes for 2 hours, and then around every 8 hours
Source: Microsoft

Invoke Intune sync on one device using Powershell

Now, let’s see how to Invoke or force start Intune sync on one device using Powershell. We would require Microsoft Graph Intune module for this procedure and then create a connection wth MSgraph.

Install Microsoft Graph Intune Powershell Module

Install-module Microsoft.Graph.Intune -force

Connect to Microsoft Graph

Connect-MSGraph
Install Microsoft Graph Intune Powershell Module

Check when last Intune sync was completed on the device

Get-IntuneManageddevice | Where {$_.devicename -eq "AdeleV-Win10-NW"} | fl Lastsyncdatetime

Invoke Intune sync on a device name AdeleV-Win10-NW

Get-IntuneManageddevice -Filter "contains(devicename, 'AdeleV-Win10-NW')" | Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice
Invoke Intune sync on one device using Powershell

Invoke Intune sync on all windows devices using Powershell

As an Intune administrator, you may be managing a small number of devices or thousands of devices. Your task is to make sure that the devices are upto date with Intune policies. If you want to sync all your organization devices, then you can either wait for the device check-in process to complete or force a sync manually.

We are going to use a powershell command Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice to Initiate / Invoke / force a device check-in process on all Intune managed devices remotely.

Before running below commands, please make sure you have Installed Microsoft Graph Intune Powershell module and created a connection with MS Graph. I have provided the commands of both of these steps in previous section.

Let’s check the steps:

Collect all Intune managed windows devices in a variable

$devices = Get-IntuneManagedDevice -Filter "contains(operatingsystem, 'Windows')"

We have used Get-IntuneManagedDevice -Filter “contains(operatingsystem, ‘Windows’)” command which filter’s only windows devices, you can replace the operatingsystem filter from windows to iOS or Android to collect those type of devices and initiate Intune sync accordingly. For Example:

  • Get-IntuneManagedDevice -Filter “contains(operatingsystem, ‘iOS’)”
  • Get-IntuneManagedDevice -Filter “contains(operatingsystem, ‘Android’)”

Loop through each device and run Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice

#Loop through each device and run Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice
Foreach ($device in $devices)
{
Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice -managedDeviceId $device.managedDeviceId
Write-Host "Sending Intune Sync request to $($device.managedDeviceId)"
}
Loop through each device and run Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice

If your organization has more than 1000 devices / you want to Initiate Intune sync on more than 1000 devices then you would need to use Get-MSGraphAllPages cmdlet with Get-IntuneManagedDevice cmdlet.

Invoke Intune sync on more than 1000 devices

$devices = Get-IntuneManagedDevice -Filter "contains(operatingsystem, 'Windows')" | Get-MSGraphAllPages

Loop through each device and run Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice

#Loop through each device and run Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice
Foreach ($device in $devices)
{
Invoke-IntuneManagedDeviceSyncDevice -managedDeviceId $device.managedDeviceId
Write-Host "Sending Intune Sync request to $($device.managedDeviceId)"
}

Invoke Intune Sync using Bulk Device Actions

You can also Initiate device check-in process on multiple devices at once from Microsoft Intune admin center as well. Sync action can be initiated for Windows, macOS, iOS/iPadOS, Chrome OS, Android etc using Bulk device action option.

When you are using Microsoft Intune admin center to Bulk initiate Sync on the devices, you can filter the list by OS and then select the devices on which you want to Initiate Sync. Let’s check the steps:

Invoke Intune Sync using Bulk Device Actions
  • Select OS from the drop-down list. For example: Windows.
  • Select Device action as Sync.
Invoke Intune Sync using Bulk Device Actions
  • On the Devices tab, click on + Select devices to include to select the devices on which you want to start the Sync action.
Invoke Intune Sync using Bulk Device Actions
  • On Review + create page, click on Create to Initiate Sync action on the selected devices.
Invoke Intune Sync using Bulk Device Actions
  • Succesfully initiated Sync all all devices which we had selected while creating the Bulk device action.
Invoke Intune Sync using Bulk Device Actions

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have seen how to Force Intune Sync on all devices. You can Invoke intune sync on one device by using the devicename filter in the Get-IntuneManageddevice command or you can loop through all your organization’s devices and then Initiate the Intune Sync as well. If you do not prefer powershell to force Intune sync then you can also manually initiate intune sync by using the blog post: How to force Intune Sync manually from a Windows device.

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