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Access Box via terminal

  • May 22, 2025
  • 5 replies
  • 35 views
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I have an M1 Mac Mini and an intel 13 inch MacBook pro.

In both machines, I can access Box fine on Finder.

However, when I try to access it on the terminal, I either do not see "Box" folder in the home repository (when I do see other cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox), or it does not show me any files within the Box folder ($ls do not show me anything when I do see many files on Finder). 

After struggling weeks to fix this, I figured out that I can access files in the following repository:

/Users/MAC-OS-USER/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box

Is there any way to fix this? I have tried deleting/reinstalling Box many times.

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EDIT:

Another problem I found is when I try to compile some .tex files that uses \include command to call other files in the same repository, I get an error message saying such file does not exist, when I clearly see that file using Finder. 

I think these are related--somehow Box is malfunctioning and not correctly reading files that do exist in the repo.

    5 replies

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    Up until yesterday, I was able to "cd Box" and use files in the Mac Terminal.
    After the macbook pro "crashed", rebooted, this was no longer available as you described.

    I am trying a temporary work around.  However, something appears to have broken.  This work around may or may not be suitable.
    I am able to access everything on the box drive via the Finder and other GUI applications, just not when using the Terminal.

    Open the Mac Terminal and do this:

    ln -s /Users/USERNAME/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box /Users/USERNAME/boxdrive

    Now I can "cd boxdrive" and see everything.
    I could just "cd /Users/USERNAME/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box", but that's just too much typing.

    Something has broken with this recent Box Drive update.

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    Thanks, Tom! This symbolic link "work around" worked perfectly for me to be able to access the Box-Box directory.

    Update:

    However, I can't make any zsh script executable. I have tried and tried recursively and with chmod 775. Have either of you had this problem?

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    Hi Keri, I have been having the same issue with trying to use chmod 775 recursively on a directory and none of the file privileges are changing. Previously there has been no issue with this command on Box and I wondered if you found a workaround for this problem? Many thanks.

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    This is what I did: 

    ln -s /Users/USERNAME/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box /Users/USERNAME/Box

    This lets me just go to my files like so: cd ~/Box
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    Checking back a year later:

    ln -s /Users/USERNAME/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box /Users/USERNAME/boxdrive

    I'm still using this solution, no problems encountered.

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