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Question

Understand box api call rate limit

  • May 22, 2025
  • 7 replies
  • 82 views

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There are two limitations according to Box API document

  • 10 API calls per second per user.
  • 4 uploads per second per user.

So the question is: the first limit is 10 APIs/sec contains the the second limitation (4 upload APIs/sec) ?

For example: I can call 4 upload APIs/sec + 6 other API call (total 10API calls/sec)

Or 4 upload APIs/sec + 10 other API calls ( total 14 api calls/sec)

Thanks for your helping.

7 replies

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Hi  ,

 

There will actually be four rate limits that you'll need to be aware of, as per the reference docs:

  • 16.67 API calls per second per user (updated from 10).
  • 4 uploads per second per user.
  • 6 searches per second per user, up to 60 searches per minute.
  • 12 searches per second per enterprise.

The 16.67 API calls per second per user will be the limit, and be inclusive of the 4 uploads. So you can call 4 upload API calls/sec + 12 other API calls (total 16.67 API calls/sec). 

 

The only oddity here is the 12 searches per second per enterprise. Each app will still have a 16.67 API call per second per user limit, but 12 is the total limit of searches per seconds amongst all apps within your enterprise / company.

 

Thanks,

Jon


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Is the limit applied to all apps per user? In other words, does each app get this quota per user and users can run multiple apps at this speed of each in parallel?


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Hello Jon,


Does this rate limit apply to admin users when using the 'As-User' header?

For instance, an admin user making calls as two different users. The rate limit will be 16.6 calls per second per each user?


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Hi,

 

Yes rate limit is applied even when admin users use the 'As-User' header but in this case the api's are counted against the user and not against the admin making the call


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Is the rate limit still applied if using the official SDK? 


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Yes - the rate limits apply no matter what method or application is calling the API, including the official Box SDKs. Rate limits are in place to protect the health of the service and to minimize the risk of an overactive application causing issues - whether intentionally such as an attack or (much more frequently) unintentionally such as a bug in the code calling the API.


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What is the rate limit of enterprise admin streaming api?
Does it also come under 100k per month and 1k per minute ?

What is the suggested polling interval to call streaming api? (admin_logs_streaming)