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The v1 of the metadata view Content Explorer has reached end of support. While v1 remains available in the 24.0.0 package, it no longer receives bug fixes or new features. Follow the migration guide and switch to the v2 metadata view of Content Explorer in order to receive the newest features.
With Content Explorer you can display files and folders based on their metadata. The metadata view uses and to find the data you want to display.
Metadata view

Prerequisites

  • Read the guide.
  • Check the .
  • Check the information on .

Create and configure an app

  1. .
  2. Add the local development address in the CORS Domains: CORS Domains
  3. Generate a .

Create a metadata template

The next step is to create a metadata template.
  1. Use or Admin Console to create the template.
  2. Apply an already created template to a Box folder. Make sure you enable the cascade policy. For detailed instructions, see instructions on customizing and applying templates.
You can also apply a metadata template to a file.

Display name and key parameters

  • The displayName parameter is the display name of the template visible in the Admin Console.
  • The templateKey parameter is a unique identifier of the template. It needs to be unique across the enterprise for which you create the metadata template. If you don’t provide the templateKey parameter, API creates a unique one based on the value in displayName.
  • The [fields].displayName parameter is the display name of the field as it is shown to the user in the web and mobile apps.
  • The [fields].key parameter is a unique identifier for a specific field in the template. The identifier must be unique within the template to which it belongs.

Display metadata view

Proceed to fill in the necessary properties passed to the Content Explorer. To make things easier, you can use a sample project based on a basic React app to launch metadata view.
  1. Clone the metadata sample project.
  2. Update the placeholders in App.js with actual values: The defaultView, fieldsToShow, and metadataQuery parameters are already defined in the sample project. Examples of these parameters are available in the sample project.
  3. Pass the required parameters to the Content Explorer component.
A sample code for a React component including the Content Explorer metadata view would look as follows:

Metadata keys

To decide which fields to show, the Content Explorer uses metadata , not the . You can see the display names in the Admin Console and user view, but you can obtain the field keys through the API. The field keys are not changing, even if you change the metadata display name. This ensures that the functionality works properly, despite any changes to the metadata in UI view.

Metadata keys sanitization

are restricted to alphanumeric characters only:
  • No hyphens - or underscores _ are permitted.
  • Only letters (a-z, A-Z) and numbers (0-9) are allowed.
Non-Latin characters: If keys contain characters from non-Latin alphabets (such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, etc.) they are automatically renamed to generic identifiers:
  • field for the first occurrence
  • field1, field2, and so on for subsequent occurrences
Keys are based on the display names.
TIP: For a detailed flow, see Metadata view blog post.
Last modified on July 3, 2026