Cancel Workflows in SharePoint using PowerShell

Requirement: There was a large list with workflow attached to it. SharePoint Development team came with a requirement of cancelling multiple workflows running on these list items, nearly 2000!

While cancelling workflows on individual item is pretty straight forward, How about cancelling workflows on 1000's of items? Would be a daunting task, isn't it?

PowerShell Solution:
Well, PowerShell can help to cancel workflows in SharePoint. If you ever have to cancel multiple running workflows on all list items, use this PowerShell script:

Cancel all workflows on a list:

$web = Get-SPWeb "http://your-sharepoint-site-url"

#List Name
$list = $web.Lists["Your-List-Name"]

# Iterate through all Items and all Workflows on Items
foreach ($item in $list.Items) 
 {
   foreach ($wf in $item.Workflows) 
     {
 #Cancel Workflows        
 [Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager]::CancelWorkflow($wf)      
     }
  }

To cancel all errored workflows use the condition as:

foreach ($item in $list.Items) 
 {
   foreach ($wf in $item.Workflows) 
     {
        if($wf.InternalState -match 'Error')
         {
     #Cancel Workflows        
            [Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager]::CancelWorkflow($wf);      
         }
     }
 }

Lets target a particular workflow:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

$web = Get-SPWeb "http://your-sharepoint-site-url"

#Get the List
$list = $web.Lists["Your-List-Name"]

#Get the specific workflow, Associated with the list
$WorkFlowToCancel = "Approval Workflow"

# Iterate through all Items and all Workflows on Items
foreach ($item in $list.Items) 
 {
   foreach ($wf in $item.Workflows) 
     {
     #Check for the particular workflow
        if( ($wf.ParentAssociation.Name -eq $WorkFlowToCancel) -and ($wf.IsCompleted -ne $true) -and($wf.StatusText -ne "Canceled"  )) 
        {
            write-host "Previous workflow status:"  $wf.InternalState
            #Cancel Workflow
            [Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.SPWorkflowManager]::CancelWorkflow($wf)      
            write-host "Workflow Cancelled at $($list.title)! "
        }
     }
  }

Related Post: How to Start a SharePoint Workflow using PowerShell