PowerShell: Grant NTFS Permissions to Folders

Let's assume that your folder is located at 'C:\Public'

In order to use power shell ACL modification commands and avoid specifying many lines of code, it is better that you use a variable containing the reference permissions that you need. For example, let's say that you have the file 'C:\Public\ACLTemplate.txt' including the NTFS permissions that you have. You can take these permissions as a reference and put then in a variable like this:
$DesiredPermissions = Get-ACL C:\Public\ACLTemplate.txt

Finally, in order to apply all of these NTFS settings to all existing folders in C:\Public. (i.e. C:\Public\Folder1, C:\Public\Folder2, C:\Public\Folder3, ... , C:\Public\FolderN
You can execute:

Set-ACL   -Path C:\Public\*   -AclObject   $DesiredPermissions


Or if you want, you can make the whole process with just one line, and no need of a variable just using:
Get-ACL C:\Public\ACLTemplate.txt | Set-ACL   -Path C:\Public\*

By the way, I believe that you know that you can also use CMD commands, even from Power Shell in order to achieve the same goal. Using ICACLS for example, allows you to specify the desired permissions easily.

For example, if you want to assign Full access permission for John.Smith in all the sub-folders inside C:\Public, you just need to run:

ICACLS   C:\Public\*   /Grant   john.smith:F

If the folders match the usernames, you can use the following.

$path = "C:\Share"

$folders = Get-ChildItem -Path $path

foreach ($folder in $folders)
{
    try {
    $user = $folder.BaseName
    $acl = Get-Acl $folder.FullName
    $ar = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule($user,"FullControl","Allow")
    $acl.SetAccessRule($ar)
    Set-Acl $($folder.FullName) $acl
    } catch {
    Write-Host $folder.FullName did not have a matching user.
    }
}

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