Change Location of Box Drive Folder
Answered
I would like to change the location of the Box Drive folder from C:\Users\*User Name*\Box to C:\Box. I understand there is no official option but was curious if anyone had any luck with this. Possibly by changing Registry Keys?
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It is not recommended. The Box folder under "C:\Users\*User Name*\Box " is not an actual folder but is a junction point that points to the Box folder under C:\Users\*User Name*\AppData\Local\Box\Box folder. It contains the data folder for several databases that contain info about your Box folder, a cache folder of the most accessed files, logs folder and unsync'd files folder.
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Thank you for the info. I'm curious if there is a way to create another junction (mklink command didn't work) to the specified volume except at C:\ instead of under the users folder. I have a group of users that want to link several Excel sheets together and have the links/formulas work no matter who is accessing the file. It would be helpful if the absolute link could read C:\Box\file.xlsx instead of including the username.
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At some point Box may allow changing the location of the Box Drive folder, but for now that is not possible. To have persistent link in Excel that everyone can use is possible using Box Sync as described in this article: https://community.box.com/t5/Using-Box-Sync/Using-Box-Sync-To-Link-To-Other-Box-Files/ta-p/124.
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Now, I did some fiddling with links in Excel. I don't know that this is practical on a large scale since it requires some additional steps, but it does seem to work in the limited testing I did. When you create a link to another excel file in Box drive you end up with a link like 'C:\Users\username\Box\folder\[testlink2.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B$4. Replacing the "Users\username" with "%userprofile%" (i.e. 'C:\%userprofile%\Box\folder\[testlink2.xlsx]Sheet1'!$B$4) should make the link user agnostic. Making the change to all links can be done using search and replace.
In testing I updated and saved the source file, in this case testlink2.xlsx. Then in the destination file updated the cell values by going to "Data/Edit Links/Update Values". The updates I did in the source were reflected in the destination file. Note: When you open the destination file it will complain about being able to find the linked file. Skip the update and use the "Data/Edit Links/Update Values" path then point to the source file in your Box Drive path and it will update the values in the cells.
I did not test with another user so some additional validation needs to be done to see if this works in a multi-user setting. Happy testing....
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You can't at present change location of your Box Drive folder. See the last bullet point in the following:
For Box drive folder locations:
Steve
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Agreed. This causes hardship, since I have a large Box repository and many of us have faster booting SSDs that aren't large enough to hold the whole contents plus our other software. I normally stored my Box sync on my data HD. This is why I waited until the last day to switch from Sync to Drive...
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Hi ,
Welcome to the Box Community and thanks for your first post in the forum!
Changing Box Drive folder's default location is currently a known limitation so this is at present not possible. See the 4th to the last bullet point in this community article: General Limitations When Using Box Drive.
The Box Community team shares selected conversations on the community back to other Box teams from time to time, including product feedback. However, if you'd like to provide direct feedback you can comment here on this thread on our Pulse site for product feedback.
Thanks for your help and time in the Community! Be sure to read our guidelines, Subscribe to content you like, and complete your profile on the community.
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This does not work as Excel will change %userprofile% to the actual location on the machine and the link will not work for another user.
You can, however, use the Microsoft mklink to create a symbolic link to the location needed anywhere on the system.
This does not allow you to move the Box Drive and it can be very confusing for end users (almost as confusing as asking them to create/edit their linked spreadsheets using %userprofile% instead of clicking through folders as they are use to doing.
What is needed from Box is a focus on providing tools for organizations that are not small startups. Releasing products that have the amazing potential to drive customers to Box, but then putting dumb limitations on these reminds me of the early days of Microsoft when the idea was that the user could just click Control-Alt-E-F7 or some 4 key combination to do a task.
These things sound great in a room full of IT people, but they demonstrate a very serious lack of understanding of the common user and the organizations that are trying to use the products.
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Hi everyone,
We have a few threads echoing similar sentiment but this is a known feature request by our Box Drive team and they plan on introducing this capability soon to Box Drive.
We appreciate your patience in the meantime and if you do need the functionality of changing locations of your Box folder, you can use Box Sync for the time being.
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Here we go folks!
This feature is now "coming soon" - https://community.box.com/t5/Box-Product-Updates/Configurable-Box-Drive-Location/idi-p/66358
Click the link and subscribe to our product updates, but this is coming soon in our next update version of Box Drive!
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So after suffering thru this problem here is how you can move your BoxDrive to the D:\
Here are all the instructions and a video
https://carlosvargas.com/how-to-move-your-boxdrive-to-the-d/
A symlink is the way to go. I documented the process for anyone that may need it.
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Here are all the instructions and a video
https://carlosvargas.com/how-to-move-your-boxdrive-to-the-d/
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I should say, it is obvious feature which you should have made when you design the application which is gonna work on storing data and retrieving them. First the limitation are box can work only on windows 10 and now no option to change the drive location. May I know when this feature will be released ? That would help me to think of other alternative ?
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The current version (2.3) of Box drive allows you to change the location of the local Box folder. Check out:
Box Drive will also run on Win 7 & Win 10.
Steve
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Although I appreciate the fact that we can change now, throwing a regedit in there is simply lazy. Have it a part of your installer, allow users to easily do this at installation, or better yet, at any time afterwards. I manage a very large set of data in Box and it may be soon time to look for an alternative. Sad...
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Beginning with version 2.3 of Box Drive, admins can configure the default mount location of Box Drive to a general location outside of the space. As a result, absolute file links created in another application (Excel, Word, InDesign, and so on) work when you share a file that contains those links as other users can navigate along the same folder path, assuming they have also mounted Drive in the same place.
This does not move the Box Drive cache. The cache will continue to be stored under C:/ or Mac HD. There is an existing feature request for this functionality where you can add your feedback. We hope to resolve this gap in the future!
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Does anyone know if this has been resolved? I really need Box files to be hosted on my 2TB D drive, not in my smaller system drive.
@cavarpe - I did the symlink thing that you came up with, but I'm too much of a newbie to this stuff to know if that's going to cause any other problems on my machine
If I can't get this to work, I'm going to have to switch to Dropbox. This seems like really basic functionality to me
Thanks!
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@Juan Camilo Sanchez Arcila: If you read back through this you will see that they did implement this feature. More can be found:
https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052805933-Configurable-Box-Drive-Location
https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043697454-Configuring-the-Default-Box-Drive-Folder-LocationRegards
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Dear ITIOps
Thanks for the information
I am afraid this solution is not even close to solving the problem.
The only thing done was to create a link (.msi executable file that links to the C:/ place where Box was installed). I tested it in windows, and it works nicely. But only works on windows.
I think the users need a real option to determine the location of the installation. That would be helpful, for example, for people working with dual boot Windows/Linux computers (Once Box has not an app for Linux).
Anyways, thanks for the information,
JC.
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@Juan Camilo Sanchez Arcila
I tried this and it worked for moving the Box files themselves to another drive. I'm still stress testing it to make sure it works consistently, but so far so good:
https://carlosvargas.com/how-to-move-your-boxdrive-to-the-d/If it doesn't work, moving to Dropbox, but I don't want to if I dont have to because I have a LOT of files on Box
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@Juan Camilo Sanchez Arcila. You are correct in that what I provided only supports to Window and Mac users. There have been many requests for Linux support, but as far as I can tell there is nothing in Box's roadmap. I have been using another application that will solve the problem for Box access called ExpanDrive (https://www.expandrive.com/) that does support Linux, Windows and Mac. It allows you to map most all of your cloud drives using one app.
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