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The Bandwidth Usage by User report contains information on monthly bandwidth usage (file uploads and downloads) by managed, external, and anonymous users that interact with your organization’s content. The data in a Bandwidth Usage by User report can help you ensure that your users and your organization adhere to the Box Fair Use Policy, specifically that each user may not consume more than 1 TB per month cumulatively for uploading and downloading files to Box.
Note
  • Box began collecting bandwidth usage data on January 1, 2024. No bandwidth usage data is available before that date.
  • UTC is used to calculate the times for the beginning and the end of the month.
Bandwidth is defined as the amount of data necessary to move anything in or out of your Box organization. The amount of bandwidth to move a file is equivalent to the size of the file in bytes. For example, a managed user uploads a 72586 byte file to Box. Bandwidth usage for that user for that file upload will typically be logged as 72586 bytes, but potential file compression or unreliable connections that require retries might result in a usage number that differs from the file size number.

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Activities that generate bandwidth usage

Some of the activities that generate bandwidth usage in Box are straightforward, and some are not as obvious. The difference between Internal and External usage is an example. Internal/External usage is defined based on who owns the files, not based on the user who is doing the activity. This section lists examples of Box activities and what bandwidth usage is logged for those activities.
  • Managed user views a file owned by someone in your organization in a browser: Internal Download usage
  • Someone not in your organization views a file owned by someone in your organization in a browser (for example, from an shared link or as an external collaborator): Internal Download usage
  • Managed user downloads a file owned by someone in your organization in a browser: Internal Download usage
  • Managed user uploads a file into your organization in a browser: Internal Upload usage
  • Open a file in a desktop app from a browser: Internal Download usage
  • Open a file in a desktop app from Box Drive: Internal Download usage if the file is not on the local hard drive
  • Save a file in a desktop app: Internal Upload usage
  • File autosave: Internal Upload usage, and the full size of the file because Box stores full-size versions of updated files, not diffs
  • Edit a Box Note: Internal Upload usage (work in a Box Note is performed locally as a browser app, and changes are uploaded to Box)
  • Edit a Box Canvas: Internal Upload Bandwidth usage (work in a Box Canvas is performed locally as a browser app, and changes are uploaded to Box)
  • Sending a file stored in Box for e-signature to someone outside your organization: Internal Upload Bandwidth and Content Moved Out usage
  • Managed user uploads a file into a folder owned by different organization (Collaborated with your organization): External Upload usage
  • Managed user downloads a file from a folder owned by different organization: External Download usage
Not all of the activities generate bandwidth usage that is attributed to managed users. Bandwidth usage by service accounts is an example of usage that does not count against your managed users.

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Bandwidth Usage by User report details

  • File format: comma-separated value (.csv) file
  • Filename format:bandwidth_usage_by_user_run_on_YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS_Page_#.csv
  • Folder name format (each report run is placed in its own folder):Bandwidth Usage by User run on YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS
  • Filename and folder name time zone: the local date and time of the admin who ran the report or who set up the report schedule.

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Bandwidth Usage by User report data

The Bandwidth Usage by User report contains the following data:

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Bandwidth Usage by User report filters

This section describes the filters that you can configure to run Bandwidth Usage by User reports.