Browse certificate store using PowerShell

Q. How can I browse the certificates in my personal user store using PowerShell?

A. Using PowerShell to view certificates is easy. PowerShell has a provider that exposes the certificates store which is part of the pki and security modules. You do not need to manually load the modules, they auto-load from PowerShell v3 and above. To view the certificates in the local users personal certificate store I would use the following:

Set-Location Cert:CurrentUserMy

Then to view the certificates just list the child items like a regular folder, for example:

Get-ChildItem | Format-Table Subject, FriendlyName, Thumbprint -AutoSize

This shows the certificates in the personal store with their subject name, friendly name and the thumbprint of the certificate.

Note that other folders of certificates can be navigated and you can also view the Local Machine certificates by navigating to Cert:LocalMachine.