Hi Box Support / Community,

I’m working on a Box integration where I need to programmatically retrieve only all files and folders that were modified within a given date range — for example, from 2025-06-22 to 2025-06-28.

What I’ve Tried:
 

1. Search API with updated_at_range

I referred to the SDK documentation here:
Box Python SDK Search Query Documentation

Example:

search_results = client.search().query( 
query='S',
ancestor_folder_ids=_folder_id],
updated_at_range=('2025-06-22T00:00:00Z', '2025-06-28T23:59:59Z'))

Issue:
This still returns records whose modified_at (or created_at) values fall outside the specified range.

For example, even with the range set as 2025-06-22 to 2025-06-28, I received a result like:

{ "id": "1903231782703", "name": "Screenshot 2025-06-16 at 7.15.16 PM.png", "created_at": "2025-06-18T23:55:45-07:00", "modified_at": "2025-06-18T23:55:45-07:00" }
 

This was clearly outside the defined date range, yet still returned by the search query.
I also tested with created_at_range and encountered the same issue.

 

2. Folders API get_items() + Client-side Filtering 

Example:

items = client.folder(folder_id).get_items() for item in items:    # Compare item.modified_at after converting to UTC

Issue:
This works correctly but returns every item in the folder (would include 2+ years of data when I need only 8 days - 1month data), which is inefficient and involves excessive API calls and unnecessary data transfer just to identify a small subset.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

- What I Have Not Considered Suitable:

• Metadata Query API / Metadata Templates:
  I have ruled out this approach because it requires each file to be added to a metadata template.
  This isn’t viable for my use case since I need to retrieve date-based results directly without requiring any manual or user-driven actions (like adding metadata to each file) on their end.

- What I’m Trying to Achieve:

• I’m looking for a reliable, efficient way to retrieve only the items (files and folders) that were modified within a given date range — ideally via a server-side filter or query — without requiring a full folder scan or client-side filtering.
   

Questions:

• Is there a recommended, supported approach for achieving this?

• Are there any limitations when using updated_at_range with the Search API that would explain why it returns results outside the specified range? 

• Is there a way to apply a modified date filter directly on a folder’s contents via SDK method client.folder(folder_id).get_items()  without requiring client-side filtering? - Preferred 

• Are there any planned improvements or enhancements for supporting this type of query natively?

Context:

• Using Box Python SDK (latest version)

• Enterprise Box account

• Issue reproducible consistently

• Timestamps properly converted to UTC before comparison when filtering client-side
  
   

Would greatly appreciate any advice or recommendations from the Box team or community on the best way to approach this.

Thank you!