Box Developer Documentation
 

    Extract metadata

    Extract metadata

    This script extracts metadata details for all the files and folders in any Box folder and saves the result in a CSV spreadsheet for each metadata template.

    Prerequisites

    Windows

    Install the latest version of dotnet core.

    MacOS & Linux

    Install PowerShell. Run the pwsh command to test the installation.

    pwsh
    

    Depending on the directory you are running the command in, the output may differ. For example:

    PowerShell 7.2.5
    Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
    
    https://aka.ms/powershell
    Type 'help' to get help.
    
    PS /Users/user/repos/boxcli/examples>
    

    If you encounter issues make sure you installed both dotnet core and PowerShell.

    Box CLI

    To use the script, you will need the Box CLI installed and configured. You can get this done by going through our quick start guide.

    Configure the script

    1. Clone the boxcli GitHub repository and cd into this example's folder or download the files from examples directory.

      git clone https://github.com/box/boxcli.git
      cd boxcli/examples/Metadata\ Extraction/
      
    2. Specify the folderID and userID parameters to tell the script which folder to scan, and who is the user running the script.

      [string]$FolderID = "",
      [string]$UserID = "",
      

      If you don't want to specify the parameters directly in the script, you can either pass them as flags or allow the script to prompt you to enter them. A sample command with flags looks as follows:

      ./Metadata-extraction.ps1 -folderId 123456789 -userId 123456789
      

    Run the script

    1. Run the Powershell command.

      pwsh
      
    2. Run the script.

      ./Metadata-extraction.ps1 -folderId 123456789 -userId 123456789
      

      When the script finishes, you will see the following output or a similar one.

      Pulling data from Folder ID: 173961139760
      metadata as user ID: 20718545815
      Reading Item ID: 1016853559790
      Metadata saved to: MetadataTemplate_properties.csv
      

    Logging

    Logs are stored in a logs folder located in the main folder. You have access to these log files:

    • Metadata-extraction_all.txt that contains all log entries.
    • Metadata-extraction_errors.txt that contains only errors.