---
title: "Unlock Random Password Generation with PowerShell"
description: "Generate ultra-secure passwords in seconds. Make password management stress-free with PowerShell."
canonical: "https://adamtheautomator.com/random-password-generator/"
---

# Unlock Random Password Generation with PowerShell

> Generate ultra-secure passwords in seconds. Make password management stress-free with PowerShell.

Source: https://adamtheautomator.com/random-password-generator/

---

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# Unlock Random Password Generation with PowerShell

[![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d0b9d42e21e5622713f8b693aa5c0f9244d5f7dd200ed29b8398f52dee5de337?s=192&d=mm&r=g)Adam Bertram](https://adamtheautomator.com/author/adam-bertram/)20 June 20192 min. read

Categories: [IT Ops](/category/it-ops/)

Tags:[PowerShell](/tag/powershell/)

Table of Contents

*   [Building the Script](#h-building-the-script)
*   [Building Random Password Length](#h-building-random-password-length)
*   [Building a PowerShell Function](#h-building-a-powershell-function)

It’s important to keep passwords long and not easily guessed. You might know how to create a secure password but wouldn’t it be nice to have a little script to do it for you? Lucky for you, if you’re on Windows, you can build a random password generator with [PowerShell](https://adamtheautomator.com/tag/powershell/) that will generate various lengths and complexity!

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Instead of building your own random password generator, instead just use an existing method that Microsoft already provides called the `GeneratePassword()` .NET method. This method comes with the `System.Web.Security.Membership` class and will do everything you need.

## Building the Script

To build this simple script, you’ll first need to make the `System.Web` assembly available. The `System.Web.Security.Membership` class is part of this assembly and it is not available by default.

```powershell
Add-Type -AssemblyName 'System.Web'
```

Once the `System.Web` assembly is available, you can now invoke the `GeneratePassword()` method.

The `GeneratePassword()` method has two arguments; `length` and `numberOfNonAlphanumericCharacters`. Using these two arguments allows you to create all kinds of random passwords with PowerShell.

*   Length – This is the length of characters the password will be.
*   numberOfNonAlphanumericCharacters – This is the number of non-alphanumeric characters that the method will generate. Think characters such as @,%,&, etc.

First, define the length of password you’d like to have. The below example is setting a variable of 10 which you’ll pass to the method.

```powershell
$length = 10
```

Next, define the number of non-alphanumeric characters you’d like to include in the password. The below code snippet sets a variable 5 which you’ll provide to the method to ensure five non-alpha characters are in the password.

```powershell
$nonAlphaChars = 5
```

Next is when you will call the `GeneratePassword()` method passing in the values of both of the variables defined above.

```powershell
[System.Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword($length, $nonAlphaChars)
```

When you execute the above code snippet, PowerShell will return a random assortment of characters in a string which you can then use wherever you’d like.

## Building Random Password Length

You can even get a bit more random and make the password lengths random as well. Use the `Get-Random` cmdlet to come up with a random integer which you can then use as the `length` argument generating a random length password also!

```powershell
$minLength = 5 ## characters
$maxLength = 10 ## characters
$length = Get-Random -Minimum $minLength -Maximum $maxLength
$nonAlphaChars = 5
$password = [System.Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword($length, $nonAlphaChars)
```

If you’ll be using this password in PowerShell, many components require a secure string. Once you have the password as a plain-text string, you can then convert it to a secure string using the `ConvertTo-SecureString` cmdlet.

```powershell
$secPw = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $password -AsPlainText -Force
```

## Building a PowerShell Function

Finally, take this random password generator to the next level by creating a function you can use wherever you want without having to remember all of the syntaxes explained above.

```powershell
function New-RandomPassword {
    param(
        [Parameter()]
        [int]$MinimumPasswordLength = 5,
        [Parameter()]
        [int]$MaximumPasswordLength = 10,
        [Parameter()]
        [int]$NumberOfAlphaNumericCharacters = 5,
        [Parameter()]
        [switch]$ConvertToSecureString
    )
    
    Add-Type -AssemblyName 'System.Web'
    $length = Get-Random -Minimum $MinimumPasswordLength -Maximum $MaximumPasswordLength
    $password = [System.Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword($length,$NumberOfAlphaNumericCharacters)
    if ($ConvertToSecureString.IsPresent) {
        ConvertTo-SecureString -String $password -AsPlainText -Force
    } else {
        $password
    }
}
```

Once you’ve added this function to your profile, a [PowerShell module](https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-modules/ "PowerShell module") perhaps or just copying/pasting it into your current session, you can execute it easily.

```powershell
New-RandomPassword -MinimumPasswordLength 10 -MaximumPasswordLength 15 -NumberOfAlphaNumericCharacters 6 -ConvertToSecureString
```

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