Box Drive Setup

Box Drive Setup

The plugin requires Box Drive (the Box desktop sync app) to be installed and signed in. Box Drive is what handles all cloud sync — the plugin only touches the local mount.

Install Box Drive

1. Download from https://www.box.com/drive
2. Run the installer (macOS DMG; Windows MSI in v0.0.4)
3. Sign in with your Box account
4. Box Drive starts syncing your Box content to the local mount

Verify the mount

ls ~/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box/

Should show your Box folders. If empty, Box Drive may still be syncing — give it a minute.

If the mount doesn't exist, see Box Drive Paths for alternate paths Box Drive uses on different macOS versions.

Enable disk encryption (FileVault)

For compliance regimes (HIPAA, FedRAMP, ITAR), enable FileVault:

# Check status
fdesetup status

# Enable (requires admin)
sudo fdesetup enable

The plugin's /box-airgap-status skill probes this and surfaces if FileVault is OFF in your compliance posture report.

Verify via the plugin

/box-drive-detect

Expects:

• Mount detected at ~/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box/
• Mount writable
• Box Drive process running
• Account email present

If any check fails, the skill walks you through the fix.

/box-airgap-status

Confirms broader trust posture: Box data path closed (via Box Drive), disk encryption status, and asks once about LLM provider.

When Box Drive is offline

Box Drive can be running but offline (laptop closed, network down, etc.). Behavior:

• Local writes succeed (mount is still local)
• Box Drive queues the changes
• When connectivity returns, Box Drive flushes the queue

The plugin's box-drive-detect reports sync state as offline / pending / idle. Local writes are safe in any of these states.

Box Drive on different Box accounts

If you switch Box accounts via Box Drive:

1. Box Drive un-mounts the previous account
2. The new account's content mounts in its place
3. The plugin's workspace (_box-memory.json) is bound to a specific path — if the new account doesn't have that workspace, recall returns empty

For multi-account workflows, use separate workspaces per account.

Box Drive on Windows (v0.0.4 — not yet supported)

Windows paths:

• Modern: %USERPROFILE%\Box\
• Legacy: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Box\

The plugin's box-drive-detect will check these in v0.0.4. For now, Windows support is documented in Box Drive Paths but the plugin only ships macOS detection.

Box Drive on Linux (unsupported)

Box has no official Linux Drive client. Workarounds:

• WebDAV mount via davfs2 — Box-published WebDAV endpoint
• rclone mount — third-party FUSE-based

Neither is officially supported by this plugin. If you've set one up and it presents as a real local FS path, the plugin's box-drive-detect accepts a path declared in _box-memory.json.settings.box_drive_path_override. Use at your own risk.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
box-drive-detect says "no mount found"	Box Drive not installed or not signed in	Install + sign in
Mount not writable	Permissions issue OR Box Drive paused	Quit + restart Box Drive
Process not running	Box Drive quit	Launch Box Drive
Account email mismatch	Box Drive signed in as a different account than expected	Confirm intended Box account, or update workspace declaration
Sync state stuck pending	Box Drive's sync queue not flushing	Check Box Drive's status pane in macOS menu bar

See also

• box-drive-detect — the verification skill
• box-airgap-status — broader trust posture
• Box Drive Paths — known mount paths per OS / Box Drive version
• Troubleshooting — more diagnostic flows
• Box Drive download