You tok the words out of my mouth!  HOW the heck can we set that as a default?

Hi Diane, 

Welcome to the Box Community and thanks for your post in the forum!

You can sort your files and folders by Name, Date Modified, and Size. Simply click the appropriate header to sort. Click the squares icon to show the files in a grid image format. Click the lines icon to show the files in a list format. 

For numbered files that go into double digits (or higher), "0" must be used to fill digit spaces for the numbers to display correctly. For example, if you have a list of items that goes to 15, use "01" instead of "1" for the order to display correctly.

https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043695474-Sort-Files-and-Folders 

Note: The sort configuration is based on what is set on the All Files page. If you have it sorted by date on the All Files page, then all contents within folders will follow that format. In a single session you can sort by name, but as soon as that folder is closed, it will go back to date.

a post from another thread (2 years ago)... so far it is working for me.

Is there a way to save sort preferences? – Box Support

"ok , a bit random , but if you navigate to "All Files" or where you start when you initially login , and set the sort order there , it will "sticks" when you navigate to other pages.

I've no idea why but it seems to work"

I found the the sort preference one sets in the "All Files" view is applied to all Box folders as the default. If you desire a default alphabetical sort, go to All Files and sort by Name. When you refresh or return to other folders, they should be sorted by name too.

I just need to sort my set of folders alphabetically - so the ALL Files setting isn't possible. 

This is insanely annoying. I need to be able to set a different default PER FOLDER, not globally. Windows has this, macOS has this, other applications have this, why doesn't box?

FOUND IT Y'ALL AND IT WORKS

Sort Files and Folders

"When you define a sorting order in your All Files window, Box applies that sorting order as the default sorting order in all your Box windows."

This works, but it's kind of crazy how unintuitive they made it... All hail the UI/UX team.