Box

At a glance

Capability	Support
rclone support tier	Tier 1: Core
Checksums	SHA-1
Modification times	Kept, to 1 s
Case-insensitive names	Yes
Duplicate names allowed	No
Server-side copy	Yes
Server-side move and rename	Yes
Folder move and rename	Yes, in one step
Free space reporting	Yes
Empty folders	Yes
Change notifications	Yes
Uploads of unknown size	Yes
Public links	Yes

The initial setup for Box involves getting a token from Box which you can do either in your browser, or with a config.json downloaded from Box to use JWT authentication. rclone config walks you through it.

Setup notes

In CloudMount you add this drive from the Add drive screen, and the wizard asks for the options listed under Options. The notes below come from rclone’s setup guide.

Using rclone with an Enterprise account with SSO

If you have an “Enterprise” account type with Box with single sign on (SSO), you need to create a password to use Box with rclone. This can be done at your Enterprise Box account by going to Settings, “Account” Tab, and then set the password in the “Authentication” field.

Once you have done this, you can setup your Enterprise Box account using the same procedure detailed above in the, using the password you have just set.

Invalid refresh token

According to the box docs:

Each refresh_token is valid for one use in 60 days.

This means that if you

Don’t use the box remote for 60 days
Copy the config file with a box refresh token in and use it in two places
Get an error on a token refresh

then rclone will return an error which includes the text Invalid refresh token.

To fix this you will need to use oauth2 again to update the refresh token. You can use the methods in the remote setup docs, bearing in mind that if you use the copy the config file method, you should not use that remote on the computer you did the authentication on.

Here is how to do it.

$ rclone config
Current remotes:

Name                 Type
====                 ====
remote               box

e) Edit existing remote
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
r) Rename remote
c) Copy remote
s) Set configuration password
q) Quit config
e/n/d/r/c/s/q> e
Choose a number from below, or type in an existing value
 1 > remote
remote> remote
Configuration complete.
Options:
- type: box
- token: {"access_token":"XXX","token_type":"bearer","refresh_token":"XXX","expiry":"2017-07-08T23:40:08.059167677+01:00"}
Keep this "remote" remote?
Edit remote
Value "client_id" = ""
Edit? (y/n)>
y) Yes
n) No
y/n> n
Value "client_secret" = ""
Edit? (y/n)>
y) Yes
n) No
y/n> n
Remote config
Token already configured - replace it?
y) Yes
n) No
y/n> y
Use web browser to automatically authenticate rclone with remote?
 * Say Y if the machine running rclone has a web browser you can use
 * Say N if running rclone on a (remote) machine without web browser access
If not sure try Y. If Y failed, try N.
y) Yes
n) No
y/n> y
If your browser doesn't open automatically go to the following link: http://127.0.0.1:53682/auth
Log in and authorize rclone for access
Waiting for code...
Got code
Configuration complete.
Options:
- type: box
- token: {"access_token":"YYY","token_type":"bearer","refresh_token":"YYY","expiry":"2017-07-23T12:22:29.259137901+01:00"}
Keep this "remote" remote?
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y

Modification times and hashes

Box allows modification times to be set on objects accurate to 1 second. These will be used to detect whether objects need syncing or not.

Box supports SHA1 type hashes, so you can use the --checksum flag.

Restricted filename characters

In addition to the default restricted characters set the following characters are also replaced:

Character	Value	Replacement
\	0x5C	＼

File names can also not end with the following characters. These only get replaced if they are the last character in the name:

Character	Value	Replacement
SP	0x20	␠

Invalid UTF-8 bytes will also be replaced, as they can’t be used in JSON strings.

Transfers

For files above 50 MiB rclone will use a chunked transfer. Rclone will upload up to --transfers chunks at the same time (shared among all the multipart uploads). Chunks are buffered in memory and are normally 8 MiB so increasing --transfers will increase memory use.

Deleting files

Depending on the enterprise settings for your user, the item will either be actually deleted from Box or moved to the trash.

Emptying the trash is supported via the rclone however cleanup command however this deletes every trashed file and folder individually so it may take a very long time. Emptying the trash via the WebUI does not have this limitation so it is advised to empty the trash via the WebUI.

Root folder ID

You can set the root_folder_id for rclone. This is the directory (identified by its Folder ID) that rclone considers to be the root of your Box drive.

Normally you will leave this blank and rclone will determine the correct root to use itself.

However you can set this to restrict rclone to a specific folder hierarchy.

In order to do this you will have to find the Folder ID of the directory you wish rclone to display. This will be the last segment of the URL when you open the relevant folder in the Box web interface.

So if the folder you want rclone to use has a URL which looks like https://app.box.com/folder/11xxxxxxxxx8 in the browser, then you use 11xxxxxxxxx8 as the root_folder_id in the config.

Options

Standard options

The wizard asks for these when you add the drive.

client_id

OAuth Client Id.

Leave blank normally.

Type: string

client_secret

OAuth Client Secret.

Leave blank normally.

Type: string

box_config_file

Box App config.json location

Leave blank normally.

Leading ~ will be expanded in the file name as will environment variables such as ${RCLONE_CONFIG_DIR}.

Type: string

access_token

Box App Primary Access Token

Leave blank normally.

Type: string

box_sub_type

Type: string · Default: user

Choices:

user: Rclone should act on behalf of a user.
enterprise: Rclone should act on behalf of a service account.

Advanced options

The wizard shows these under Advanced options. Most drives work without changing any of them.

token

OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob.

Type: string

auth_url

Auth server URL.

Leave blank to use the provider defaults.

Type: string

token_url

Token server url.

Leave blank to use the provider defaults.

Type: string

client_credentials

Use client credentials OAuth flow.

This will use the OAUTH2 client Credentials Flow as described in RFC 6749.

Note that this option is NOT supported by all backends.

Type: bool · Default: false

root_folder_id

Fill in for rclone to use a non root folder as its starting point.

Type: string · Default: 0

upload_cutoff

Cutoff for switching to multipart upload (>= 50 MiB).

Type: SizeSuffix · Default: 50Mi

commit_retries

Max number of times to try committing a multipart file.

Type: int · Default: 100

list_chunk

Size of listing chunk 1-1000.

Type: int · Default: 1000

owned_by

Only show items owned by the login (email address) passed in.

Type: string

impersonate

Impersonate this user ID when using a service account.

Setting this flag allows rclone, when using a JWT service account, to act on behalf of another user by setting the as-user header.

The user ID is the Box identifier for a user. User IDs can found for any user via the GET /users endpoint, which is only available to admins, or by calling the GET /users/me endpoint with an authenticated user session.

See: https://developer.box.com/guides/authentication/jwt/as-user/

Type: string

encoding

The encoding for the backend.

See the encoding section in the overview for more info.

Type: Encoding · Default: Slash,BackSlash,Del,Ctl,RightSpace,InvalidUtf8,Dot

description

Description of the remote.

Type: string

Limitations

Note that Box is case insensitive so you can’t have a file called “Hello.doc” and one called “hello.doc”.

Box file names can’t have the \ character in. rclone maps this to and from an identical looking unicode equivalent ＼ (U+FF3C Fullwidth Reverse Solidus).

Box only supports filenames up to 255 characters in length.

Box has API rate limits that sometimes reduce the speed of rclone.

rclone about is not supported by the Box backend. Backends without this capability cannot determine free space for an rclone mount or use policy mfs (most free space) as a member of an rclone union remote.

See List of backends that do not support rclone about and rclone about.

Get your own Box App ID

Here is how to create your own Box App ID for rclone:

Go to the Box Developer Console and login, then click My Apps on the sidebar. Click Create New App and select Custom App.
In the first screen on the box that pops up, you can pretty much enter whatever you want. The App Name can be whatever. For Purpose choose automation to avoid having to fill out anything else. Click Next.
In the second screen of the creation screen, select User Authentication (OAuth 2.0). Then click Create App.
You should now be on the Configuration tab of your new app. If not, click on it at the top of the webpage. Copy down Client ID and Client Secret, you’ll need those for rclone.
Under “OAuth 2.0 Redirect URI”, add http://127.0.0.1:53682/
For Application Scopes, select Read all files and folders stored in Box and Write all files and folders stored in box (assuming you want to do both). Leave others unchecked. Click Save Changes at the top right.