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Question

Unable to access specific folder in Box Drive

  • May 11, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 17 views
Ean Ridley

We have a user that has been unable to access a specific folder within Box Drive. The folder is visible but has not updated for months and shows old files within it.

Online access is not a problem and other users are not experiencing the same issue. Any suggestions on how to fix are appreciated. 

Ean Ridley

    1 reply

    Rona Box
    • Rona Box
    • Community Manager
    • May 12, 2026

    Hi ​@Ean Ridley, 

    Welcome to Box Community, and we’ll assist with your folder access on Box Drive!  

     

    To ensure that folder access in your local Box folder, please checkout the following: 

    1. Does the affected user have enough permission to access the folder in Box Drive? 
    2. Make sure to only use Box Drive in a supported Operating System. 
    3. Update Box Drive. 
    4. Manually reset Box Drive, please see the steps below.

     

     Manually Resetting Box Drive

    In rare instances Box Drive fails to launch. Manually resetting Box Drive can often resolve this.

     New Version - To reset Box Drive on Windows 

    1. Exit Box Drive (if it is running). If necessary, use Task Manager to end the Box.exe process.
    2. Run command 
      "C:\Program Files\Box\Box\FS\cf\cfctl.exe" drive reset Box
      on command prompt. Files not uploaded to Box will be saved to the Desktop with a timestamp.
      1. The output should say “Box Drive reset completed successfully” at the end. If this is not so, then it may be that some files were still open and could not be deleted. Once everything is closed, a re-run of step 2 should be successful.
    3. From RegEdit, delete the registry entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Box/Box to clear Box preferences.
    4. Restart the Box Drive and follow the prompt to log back in.

    If you are still having trouble, open a support ticket.

     Legacy Version - To reset Box Drive on Windows 

    1. Exit Box Drive (if it is running). If necessary, use Task Manager to end the Box.exe process.
    2. Ascertain whether any files exist in C:\users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Box\Box\unsyncedFiles. These are files that have not been uploaded to Box. If these files do exist, and if you want to keep them, copy them to any location outside of C:\users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Box\Box\ (such as your desktop). Proceeding with the steps below deletes these files.
    3. Delete this folder: C:\users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Box\Box.
    4. From RegEdit, delete the registry entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Box/Box to clear Box preferences.
    5. Restart the Box Drive and follow the prompt to log back in.

    If you are still having trouble, open a support ticket.

     To manually reset Box Drive on a Mac 

    1. Quit Box Drive if it is running.
    2. Download and open the Box Reset Tool zip file.
    3. Open the Box Reset Tool from the Downloads folder.
    4. Click Reset.
      • You should see a prompt stating “Box Drive reset successfully”.
        MacOS_Box Drive_Reset Successful.png
    5. Open Box from your application folder and log back in. 

    Note: The Box Reset Tool will write logs of actions performed to your Desktop folder under “Box-ResetTool-logs_(<current day>)”.

     

    Once you restart Box Drive, you can review any archived unsynced files and either upload them manually or delete them to free up hard drive space.

     

    Hope this helps! Should the issue persists, you can proceed and submit a support case that way, we could troubleshoot further. 

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