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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.

 

  1. 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

  1. 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.

  1. 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

Would ARM device support facilitate the use of Box Drive on Parallels VMs?  I haven’t tried this in a while, but Box Drive fails to launch in Windows Parallels VMs hosted on MacOS (Intel or Apple).  We have a small but vocal user base that’s eager to see this resolved.  Good news, thanks for the info.    

Yay! We’re so excited about this release — thanks for sharing ​@andriy box and ​@GregHBox!  👏👏

This is great news. We’ve been waiting for the folder redirection for a long time now. Looking forward to the other updates and features too.

I filled out the form about a week ago but haven’t received a response yet. How long does it typically take to get into the beta?

👋 Hi ​@ngrusz1, welcome to the Box Community! We're excited to have you here.

 

Due to a high volume of participants, there may be some delays in processing requests by our Product Team — our apologies for the wait. If you haven’t heard back yet, I recommend reaching out to your Account Representative for follow ups. I’ve sent over their contact details for your convenience.

 

Thank you for your patience, and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions or concerns in the meantime. 😊​​

hi I would also like to find out, I also signed up for Box Drive Beta Live to be able to work on the Microsoft surface ARM laptop we just picked up. 

when might this be available to download and install?

Hi ​@furqanq, welcome to the Box Community!

 

If you’ve already submitted your application for the public beta program and reviewed and acknowledged the Main Beta Agreement (MBA), but haven’t yet received any next steps from our Product Team, I recommend reaching out to your Account Representatives for an update.


For reference, I’ve also sent you a message with more information.

 

We appreciate your patience! 😊

Hello! I have just submitted my form requesting to be part of this Beta. How long will it take to receive access?

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