Retention is available as a paid, add-on feature for Business Plus, Enterprise and Elite customers.
Creating a Retention Policy
- Open the Admin Console.
- In the lefthand navigation, click Governance.
- Within the Retention tab, click Create Retention Policy.
- The Create Retention Policy screen displays. Here you can specify the details of how you want this policy to function.
- In the Retention Policy Name section, enter a name for your policy.
- In the Time Period section, specify the amount of time you need to retain the content, beginning from the date the content is uploaded or created in Box. Available retention periods are:
- 30, 60, or 90 days
- 1, 3, 6, or 10 years
- A custom number of days or years
- An indefinite period of time.
- In the Disposition Action section, choose what you would like to do with the files after they have been retained for the specified time period.
- To keep the files in their current location, choose None. Users with appropriate permissions will be able to delete these files after the retention period has been met.
- To delete the content permanently once the retention period has ended, choose Permanently delete content. Folder owners and co-owners can still extend this deletion date if you have selected this option.
Note If Trash is set to "Nobody (No user or policy can delete content)", retention policy with disposition action set to "Permanently delete content" will not permanently delete content that has reached the end of the retention period.
- In the Email Notifications section, choose which users should receive email notifications about the retention policy. Selected users will receive a weekly email with a list of folders that contain files whose retention policies are set to expire within 14 days.
- You can choose to notify all Owners and Co-Owners of items that are being retained, or select specific managed users.
- In the Apply Policy To section, specify the content to which the retention policy should apply.
- To retain content within a specific folder, select Content within specific folders.
- To retain items with specific metadata templates or drop-down menu options, select Content with specific metadata.
- To retain all content uploaded to Box while the policy is in place by selecting All new content.
Note This option does not apply to existing content in an enterprise -- only to new content uploaded to the enterprise once the policy has started.
- Click Next.
- Click Select Folders or Select Metadata (depending on which option you chose in the Apply Policy To section in the previous step). When you click the button, a dialog box displays in which you can make selections.
Note If you click Select Metadata, only metadata templates or dropdown field options are available to select. If you select multiple metadata templates or dropdown field options, then the retention policy applies to files containing any one of the selected items.
- When you are finished making selections in the dialog box, click Choose.
- Review the details for the selected items, then click Next.
Note If an existing retention policy with equal or greater time period already exists on any of the selected items, the system prompts you either to remove the selection or to modify the Time Period in the previous step.
- Review your retention policy before you start it. Verify that all the information is correct.
- To edit the policy, click Edit.
- If everything looks good, click Start Policy to begin the retention policy.
Note When a folder-specific retention policy is created, the retention policy will be applied to any individual files from within the specified folder that are already in the trash. The retention policy will not be applied to any subfolders from within the specified folder that are already in the trash.
Editing a Retention Policy
IMPORTANT After you create a policy you
Note The time to apply the retention policy (both initially and for any new files) depends on the number of files affected by the retention policy. In other words, the more objects you want retained (files), the longer it takes for the retention policy to become active. To verify that your retention policy is in fact applied, in your admin console click Reports and then navigate to User Activity > Policies > Retention Policy Applied.
Retiring a Retention Policy
Retention Policy Reporting
Find out how to run a retention policy report in the Admin Console.
How Retention Interacts with Trash
https://box-content.readme.io/#get-a-trashed-file.
searching trash via API:
- Trash (if set to either Nobody or Never Delete)
- Retention Policy (with Disposition Action = Permanently Delete Content)
- Trash (any other setting)
End User Experience
- If a
- If a
- If the Time Period is changed from one
- If the Time Period is changed from indefinite to a finite value, the
- You