Several users experiencing an issue with Box Tools and Safari. When they log into Box in Safari, and try to open a document in an external app, they are prompted to install Box Tools, but Box Tools is already installed. When they try to reinstall Box Tools, the progress bar stall before completing the install and never progresses. I have helped users completely remove Box Tools and Box Drive, then I am able to reinstall Box Tools first, then Drive, and everything works, but the problem came back a day later. We have been using Box Tools for over two years without this issue. Not affecting Chrome users.
Question
Box Tools installed, but not enabled, won't reinstall.
Just to clarify, I said “not enabled” in my post title, but the checkbox next to the extension is ticked, it is the error message which states that it is not enabled. This seemed to start after a recent macOS update 26.1.
Hi
Welcome to Box Community, and we’ll help to finally get rid of the install Box Tools prompt your team has been encountering on Safari.
In case you haven’t tried yet, here are the preliminary troubleshooting steps to fix your Box Tools issue on Safari:
- Confirm Box Tools is installed in Applications.
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If it is not, please install Box Tools.
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If you see it installed twice, please uninstall both instances and do a fresh install of Box Tools.
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If able, please use the Box Edit Cleaner Script to uninstall Box Tools
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Open up your Activity Monitor. You should see two processes running:
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Box Edit
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Box Edit Local Com Server
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- If you don't see these processes running please ensure they are set to run on start up.
- Open Safari Settings. Confirm Box Tools has been enabled under 'Extensions' and 'Websites'.
- Please review this article which describes the potential changes you may need to make in your environment. You may need to check with your IT or networking team for further assistance if you are unable to make the changes yourself.
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If the issue persist, please create a ticket and work directly with the Box Product Support team. In the meantime, here are the things you can gather in your end that’ll be helpful to our investigation.
Hope it helps, and please let us know how it goes!
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