How to download a file from box using wget?

Question

I've created a direct link to a file in box:

The previous link is to the browser web interface, so I've then shared with a direct link:

However, if I download the file with a wget I receive garbage.

How can I download the file with wget?

score 17 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 05 '20 at 01:06

17

I was able to download the file by making the link public, then replacing /s/ in the url with /shared/static

So my final command was:

curl -L  https://MYUNI.box.com/shared/static/EXAMPLEtzwosac6pz --output myfile.zip

This can probably be modified for wget.

edited Nov 05 '20 at 01:06

0x90

39,472
36
165
245

answered Mar 30 '20 at 18:21

robbwh

337
2
9

Note: This works for files/zipped directories, but not for directories (at least for me). – Medhat May 12 '22 at 19:28
True, I would check out @eloqz below for a directory. I haven't tried that myself though – robbwh May 13 '22 at 20:03

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 17 '20 at 08:12

I might be a bit late to the party, but FWIW:
I tried to do the same things in order to download a folder.
I went to the box UI and opened the browser's network tab on the developer tools. Then I clicked on download and copied as cURL the first link generated, it was something like (removed many headers and options for readability)

curl 'https://app.box.com/index.php?folder_id=122215143745&rm=box_v2_zip_folder'

The response of this request is a json object containing a link for downloading the folder:

{
  "use_zpdl": "true",
  "result": "success",
  "download_url": <somg long url>,
  "progress_reporting_url": <some other url>
}

I then executed wget -L <download_url> and was able to download the file using wget

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 15 '17 at 12:09

3

The solution was to add the -L option to follow the HTTP redirect:

wget -v -O myfile.tgz -L https://ibm.box.com/shared/static/xxxxx.tgz

answered Sep 15 '17 at 12:09

Chris Snow

23,813
35
144
309

8

This just downloads an HTML file, not the tgz file. – David Parks Jul 26 '19 at 17:08
3

I agree with @DavidParks , this just downloaded an HTML file. – rajb245 Mar 20 '20 at 15:56

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 10 '22 at 14:04

What you can do in 2022 is something like this:

wget "https://your_university.app.box.com/index.php?rm=box_download_shared_file&vanity_name=your_private_name&file_id=f_your_file_id"

You can find this link in the POST method in an incognito under Google Chrome's network tab. Note that the double quotes escape characters.

How to download a file from box using wget?

4 Answers4