Differences on Box Apps
Box Web App, Box Drive and Box Edit - How to use them and when to choose them!
Box Web App
Box web app is USF IT's recommended way to access Box and take advantage of its available features.
Box web app allows you to access and manage your content from anywhere using a web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari). Box web app offers a secure convenient team collaboration such as making notes on shared documents and inviting others to collaborate on a document by sending a link. Box web app is also where you will go to manage permissions and groups if you are a co-owner / administrator for your department.
To access Box web app for USF, go to https://usf.box.com.
Box Drive
Box Drive allows you to access your files in Box using Windows Explorer (or Finder on Mac). In addition, Box Drive has a feature that allows you to mark your folders for use offline. This feature allows you the option of continuing your work when you do not have internet access, and when you are back online, the files automatically sync back up to Box so you don't have to worry about making copies or uploading manually. Learn more about Box Drive.
Box Drive vs Box Sync
Box Sync and Box Drive are two separate desktop applications that give you the ability to access Box content from your desktop environment. Box Sync enables you to mirror data stored on Box to your desktop, which is part of the Box Drive's feature.
IMPORTANT
Box Sync must be uninstalled when installing Box Drive. These two applications are known to cause issues when both are installed on the same computer. More info on how to uninstall Box Sync can be found here.
Contrasting Box Drive and Box Sync Features
| Box Drive | Box Sync | |
Search and view all the content in your Box account (including read-only) | ✓ | |
Upload content to any Box folder/ Open files from any Box folder | ✓ | |
| Lock content for editing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mark content for offline access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create and retrieve a Shared link | ✓ | ✓ |
| Manage collaborators | ✓ | |
| Change the location of the Box folder on your computer | ✓ |
Box Edit
Box Edit is an add-on feature that allows you to open and edit files stored in Box. Box Edit allows you to edit any file using the native applications installed on your computer like Office, CAD, and Photoshop directly from your web browser. Go to Box Downloads to download Box Edit which uses Box Tools installer. For more information on Box Edit, click here.
Box Tools is the installer package for Box Edit. These are tools and not a location storage used for Box.