Search content using metadata

The Box Metadata Query API enables programmatic search of Box content based strictly on applied custom metadata values.

The structure of a metadata query is similar to that of a SQL query and allows for Boolean operators, such as AND, OR, and NOT, as well as comparison or range operators, such as equal to, greater-than, and less-than.

Some benefits of the Metadata Query API include:

• no indexing delay; query immediately after metadata creations, updates, and deletions
• ability to specify a sort order by one or more fields
• no limitation on the number of characters that are queryable
• queries return item properties and metadata instances

Overview

This guide will take you through the following steps.

1. Create a metadata template
2. Locate information about the metadata template via API
3. Apply the metadata template to at least one file
4. Construct a metadata query API call to obtain the content from step 3