Dear Box Admins,

We are happy to announce that we have successfully completed private beta testing of Box Drive Cloud Files and now are ready to start the public beta. The beta requires initial testing by your IT team, followed by testing from selected end users within your organization within the coming months.

To join our public beta program, please submit your request using the form linked here. We will provide detailed instructions on how to enable this feature for beta users. Make sure to review and acknowledge the Main Beta Agreement before starting to test the beta version of Box Drive.

This new version includes many improvements that enhance performance, reliability, and ease of use. Here are some great features and upgrades you can expect:

1. ARM Devices Support: There is a growing demand for ARM devices due to their energy efficiency, improved performance, versatility across various applications, cost-effectiveness in production, and the expanding ecosystem of supporting software and tools.

2. Known Folder Redirection: Folder redirection allows you to seamlessly sync root folders from their local hard drive directly into Box, providing a more integrated experience. With this feature, users can easily change the location of a known folder to a new destination, either manually or through Group Policy. For example, the Documents folder—typically stored on a local drive—can be redirected to Box Drive, making it easy to backup and manage files stored on a user local hard drive. This feature is currently in progress and will be available in the beta later.

3. Better local storage management:

• Managing Disk Space for Box Drive Files: Users can set a custom location for where their files are stored. This means they can select a different internal drive option that suits their preferences.

• Offline Access for Files: Enables users to easily mark individual files for offline access, ensuring critical documents are always available.

• Free Up Storage Space: Provides users the ability to free up storage space by enabling users to revoke already downloaded files.

4. File Explorer Updates:

• Download Progress in Explorer for Box Actions: Explorer now show progress for downloads happening from Box for key actions like opening and marking content for offline access

• Progress Indicator for Files Opened from Applications: Files opened directly from an application will now show progress indicator while opening within that application

5. Iconography support:

• Improved Icon Display in Box Drive: Ensure all Box Drive icons can be reliably displayed. Previously, Windows imposed a sixteen (16) icon limit, which could be quickly exhausted by various apps and the Windows system itself. When this limit was hit, icons beyond this limit would not be shown to the user. In this version of Box Drive, all icons will be visible and unaffected by this restriction.

• Enhanced File Status Visibility: Users can now view multiple icons at the same time, making it easier to see file statuses like lock status and whether a file has been downloaded.

6. Improved Box Drive Application Compatibility: Box Drive now fully supports Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps, allowing users to integrate and access files more easily across modern applications.

Thank you for your interest in beta testing Box Drive!

The Box Team