About Legal Hold Policies

Legal Hold policies are available as a part of Box Governance. Use Box Governance Legal Hold policies to retain designated content in your organization by placing certain files, folders, or custodians (managed users) under legal hold. Once under legal hold, content is prevented from being permanently deleted for as long as the Legal Hold policy is active.

You can configure legal holds to preserve content in several ways:

• Selection of Custodian(s)
• Selection of Custodian(s) With a Date Range
• Selection of Folder(s)
• File (API Only)
• File Version (API Only)

Selection of Custodian(s)

When you select one or more custodians (managed users) for a Legal Hold policy, the following content is preserved:

• All content the custodian(s) own, including all new files/file versions owned in the future for as long as the legal hold is in place.
• All content within your organization in the folders and/or Hubs that the custodian(s) were collaborated into at the moment the legal hold was made active (regardless of whether the collaboration continues for the duration of the legal hold) including new files/file versions added in the future under those same top-level folders they were collaborated into at the moment the hold was made active.
• All content the custodian(s) interact with (including via shared link) after they were placed on hold. Interactions include:
  • Preview
  • Download (including files downloaded via Box Sync and Box Edit)
  • Upload (including files uploaded via Box Sync and Box Edit)
  • File is edited
  • Box Note is opened
  • Item is sent to trash (if the folder is trashed, all items within the folder are held)
  • Files and folders transferred:
    • Folders transferred from custodian to non-custodian after the custodian was placed on hold including all new files added to that folder after the ownership transfer
    • Files transferred from custodian to non-custodian after the custodian was placed on hold including new file versions uploaded after the ownership transfer
  • A Hub is updated:
    • • Files/folders are added to Hub
      • Files/folders are removed from Hub
      • Hub is deleted
      • Files/folders are moved out of Hub
      • Files/folders are restored from trash to a new location outside of Hub

Custodian content that is not held by Legal Hold policy includes:

• Files that the custodian(s) have access to only via shared link but have not interacted with.
• Files shared with the custodian after they were placed on hold but that the custodian has not interacted with.

Selection of Custodian(s) With a Date Range

When you select one or more custodians (managed users) for a Legal Hold policy and add a date range, content is preserved as described in the section above, plus the following applies:

• The date range filter specified in the Legal Hold policy configuration does apply to all content as described above, allowing for filtering out content not meeting date range criteria. All files and versions that were created or uploaded within this date range and are located in folders that custodians had access to (owns or is collaborated into) at the moment the hold was made active will be retained.
• If an end date is specified, content the custodian has interacted with after that date will not be held by the policy.
• If an end date is not specified, the date range filter does apply to content custodian has interacted with after they were placed on hold (the legal hold is ongoing).

Selection of Folder(s)

When you select one or more folders for a Legal Hold policy, the following content is preserved:

• All content placed in the folder at the moment of the Legal Hold policy becomes active.
• All new files added to that folder in the future.

File (API Only)

When you enact a Legal Hold policy on a file via API (application programming interface), that is, programmatically, the following content is preserved:

• The specific file. including all versions of the file existing at the moment of placing the file on hold and all new versions added in the future.

File Version (API Only)

When you enact a Legal Hold policy on a file version via API (application programming interface), that is, programmatically, the following content is preserved:

• The specific file version is held.

Learn more about creating and using Legal Holds

• Creating a Legal Hold in Box Governance
• Permissions Required to Administer Legal Holds
• Reporting on Legal Holds
• When a custodian leaves the company while part of a Legal Hold