How to quickly switch between multiple Azure subscriptions

Introduction

If you are like me and have to work with many Azure subscriptions with Azure CLI, you must have reached the point where you got tired of inner dialogs and commands like the following...

Which subscription am I right now?

az account show -o table

Okay, but I want to switch to that DEV subscription... but what again was the subscription id?

az account list -o table 

Then you start copying & pasting the Id into...

az account set -n <id>

That is... wasteful ⏰ So here is a short timesaver I use in my PowerShell $profile to speed up things.

My Setup

• Edit your PowerShell Profile, e.g., with Visual Studio Code code $profile
• Paste this function to the end of your profile and save

Function Switch-AzContext {
    if (-not (Get-Command az -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red 'Azure CLI not installed!'
        break
    }
    
    $azContext = az account list -o json | ConvertFrom-Json
    $azActive = $azContext | Where-Object { $_.isDefault -eq $true}
    
    $available = @()
    $azContext | ForEach-Object { $index = 1 } {
        if ($_.Id -eq $azActive.Id) {
            $available += [PSCustomObject]@{
                Active = "=>"
                Index = $index++
                Subscription = $_.Name
                SubscriptionId = $_.Id
                Account = $_.user.Name
            }
        }
        else {
            $available += [PSCustomObject]@{
                Active = $null
                Index = $index++
                Subscription = $_.Name
                SubscriptionId = $_.Id
                Account = $_.user.Name
            }
        }
    }
    
    $available | Format-Table
    
    try {
        [int]$userInput = Read-Host "Index (0 to quit)"
        
        if ($userInput -eq 0) {
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red 'Wont switch Azure CLI context!'
            break
        } elseif ($userInput -lt 1 -or $userInput -gt $index-1) {
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red 'Input out of range'
            break
        }
    
        $selection = $available | Where-Object { $_.Index -eq $userInput }
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan 'Switching to:', $selection.Subscription
        az account set --subscription $selection.SubscriptionId
    } catch {
        Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "Luke, wrong input, the index you must use!"
    }
}

• You might want to add an alias on top just like I did Set-Alias -Name azsw -Value Switch-AzContext
• Reread your profile by issuing . $profile

Profit

Now can quickly switch between your Azure subscriptions by entering azsw followed by the listed index. Sweet, isn't it! 😎

Further reading