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How to Access All Files and Folders with an Admin Account via Box API?

  • February 25, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 27 views

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Hi,

I have multiple Co-Admin accounts, and each has created their own files and folders. However, I do not have an existing Admin account with access to all content. To resolve this, I created a new Admin account, and my goal is to have a single account that can access all files and folders across the organization.

In the Admin Console → Content Management, I can see all users' data. However, when I use the Box API endpoint:

https://api.box.com/2.0/folders/0/items 
 

the API response only returns the files and folders that the Admin account has direct access to, rather than all content from all users.

Is there any way to retrieve all data across all users without explicitly adding the Admin account as a collaborator to each folder?

Thanks!

1 reply

pchristensen Box
  • Senior Staff Platform Solutions Engineer
  • 21 replies
  • March 10, 2025

Hi

You are correct that the API will access as the user authenticated so will only view content they have access to. 

Depending on your exact use case, one option could be to look at and ‘as-user’ header or generate tokens for users. This would allow you cycle through all the users and access their content as them.

Alternatively there is the Global Content Manger Scope which admins to get access to all data regardless of permissions. This cannot be enabled by the developer so you’d have to raise a ticket for this scope.

None of these approaches would require you to add the admin as a collaborator

Hope this helps
Peter Christensen, Platform Solutions Engineer, Box


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