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Collaborations define access permissions for users and groups on files and folders, similar to access control lists. A collaboration object grants a user or group access to a file or folder with permissions defined by a specific role. Use the guides in this section when you need to invite collaborators, share with groups, handle pending invitations, or manage enterprise collaboration domain restrictions through the API.

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How collaborations work

When you create a collaboration, you specify three things:
  1. Item — The file or folder being shared (type of file or folder, plus its id).
  2. Accessible by — Who receives access: a user (by ID or email login) or a group (by ID).
  3. Role — The permission level granted to that user or group.
Box applies the same permission model through the API as in the Box web app. You cannot bypass content permissions or the waterfall folder structure by using the API. Access tokens only succeed against content the authenticated user owns or is a collaborator on — see the . Collaborations are distinct from . Shared links provide URL-based access to an item. Collaborations grant role-based access to a specific user or group and appear in the item’s collaborator list.

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Roles

The collaboration roles are editor, viewer, previewer, uploader, previewer uploader, viewer uploader, co-owner, and owner. For a full description of each role, see the collaborator permission levels support article.

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Collaboration status

A collaboration invitation can be in one of these states: You can list pending invitations for the current user with .

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Users and groups

  • Users — Share with a managed or external user by user ID or email. See .
  • Groups — Share once with a Box group so every group member inherits the same role. See .
You can also build integrations that create Box groups from external systems and collaborate those groups on folders — for example, the tutorial.

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Enterprise domain restrictions

Admins can limit who can be invited as collaborators by allowing only specific email domains. Applications with the right permissions can add, list, and delete those allowed domains programmatically. See .

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Guides in this section

Share content with a user

Create a collaboration on a file or folder for a user by ID or email.

Sharing with groups

Grant the same role to every member of a Box group in one collaboration.

Pending collaborations

List invitations the current user has not accepted yet.

Allowed collaboration domains

Manage enterprise allow-lists that restrict which email domains can collaborate.

Connect Slack to group collaborations

Sync Slack channels to Box groups and share files with the channel in one command.
Last modified on August 5, 2026