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Upload to Box Through Email

End User , Overview , Article , Product Utilization , Box Web Application , Established

If your Box Administrator allows email uploads for your Business or Enterprise, you can easily upload files or send attachments to a specific Box folder by email when you enable the Allow uploads to this folder via email option. You can then forward email attachments or send files to the email address generated for that folder to upload your files.

 

Note

This feature is not available to Starter accounts and Personal accounts.

If you decide to forward email attachments to the folder, only the attachments will be uploaded, not the content of the message.

 

Enabling email uploads for folders

This feature generates an email address for your desired folder and is a convenient way to forward files to Box that you have received via an email.

Note

Email upload is intended for manual and occasional transfers of small numbers of files from common web, Windows or macOS email clients. Automated flows, integrations or scripts should instead be implemented with Box's Upload API.

Consequently, automated email uploads and Linux-based clients are not supported.

 

To enable email uploads for a folder:

  1. In the All Files window, right-click the folder and select Settings.
  2. In the Uploading section, next to Email Uploads, check Allow uploads to this folder via email. Under Upload Email Address, Box displays a unique email address.
  3. Optionally: Select "Only allow email uploads from collaborators in this folder" 
  4. To upload files into the folder, send files to this address. You can copy this email address to your clipboard and enter it as a contact in your email address book, or simply paste it into the "To" line of an email with attachments.

Notes/Issues:

  • Upload via email only works for file attachments. Content in the body of an email is not uploaded to Box.
  • The cumulative size of the message body and attachments (including signature) cannot exceed 50MB.
  • Both the folder owner and sender will receive a notification that files were uploaded successfully.
  • Collaborators will also receive a notification if upload notifications are enabled for the folder.
  • Email uploads of ".msg/.eml" files through Microsoft Outlook desktop application fail due to how Outlook handles attachment of these file extensions. As a workaround, it is recommended that you compress these attachment types into a zip file before emailing.
  • Box does not support TNEF, which is a proprietary email attachment format used by Microsoft Outlook. The attachment that is titled "winmail.dat" is ignored and is not uploaded to Box. For more information and the steps to disable TNEF, please refer to the Microsoft support page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-email-message-formats-affect-internet-email-messages-in-outlook-3b2c0536-c1c0-1d68-19f0-8cae13c26722
  • Unauthorized - User needs to complete email confirmation. Uploads via email are not allowed until email has been confirmed. 
  • SPF failures will cause email uploads to fail.  If the SPF record for your company's domain is set to look at the domain's "A" record for the authorized IP address, make sure the "A" record exists on the domain lookup via DNS. Also, verify that the email server IP address is contained in the "A" record. 

 

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