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Reading Box files in Python through API without downloading

  • May 22, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 159 views
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I have created a Box App and enabled the necessary permissions for reading and writing files in folders. Is it possible to read the content of .doc/.docx files using Box API without downloading the files using API?

The Box API gives me the content encoded in bytes (via .content()). How can I decode the content to a string? I tried things like .decode(utf-8) but that didn't work, any suggestions?

Any help is very much appreciated!

    1 reply

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    It might be a little late for you but I am facing the same problems.

    Here's a raw script of possible solution using Pillow and IO modules from Python. Hope it helps!

        from boxsdk import Client, OAuth2
        import io
        
        # Configure OAuth2 (replace with your credentials)
        oauth = OAuth2(
            client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
            client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
            access_token='YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN',
        )
        client = Client(oauth)
        
        file_id = 'YOUR_FILE_ID'
        
        # Download the file content
        try:
            file_content = client.file(file_id).content()
            print(f"File {file_id} downloaded successfully.")
        except Exception as e:
             print(f"Error downloading file: {e}")
             exit()

        from PIL import Image
       
        # Open the image using Pillow
        try:
            image = Image.open(io.BytesIO(file_content))
            print("Image opened successfully using Pillow.")
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Error opening image with Pillow: {e}")
            exit()

     

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