boxes: store and retrieve arbitrary R objects

The goal of boxes is to provide a convenient way to store R objects or arbitrary files (plus additional notes) and retrieve them again later.

To use the package, you need to know a few terms:

• box: A container to store things. Things can be R objects or files.
• item: Anything stored inside a box.
• pack: Adding an item to a box.
• pick: Retrieving an item from a box.

Boxes are stored on your disk. Hence, anything put into it will remain there until you delete the box. Technically, each box is a separate SQLite database. You can create as many boxes as you need.

Installation

You can install the dev version of boxes like so:

devtools::install_github("markheckmann/boxes")

Usage

Load package and show existings boxes. A box with your username exists by default.

library(boxes)
boxes()
# # A tibble: 1 × 6# active name objects size last_modified created # <chr> <chr> <int> <fs::byte> <dttm> <dttm> # 1 * markheckmann 2 32.9M 2025-08-27 09:30:00 2024-03-25 13:50:49

Create a new box and see that it is empty.

box_create("test")
# ℹ Activating box test
box_active()
# [1] "test"
box()
# # A tibble: 0 × 6# # ℹ 6 variables: id <chr>, object <blob>, info <chr>, tags <chr>, class <chr>,# # changed <dttm>

Add a new object to the box.

pack(mtcars, "my_data", "Data to keep for later")
box()
# # A tibble: 1 × 6# id object info tags class changed # <chr> <blob> <chr> <chr> <chr> <dttm> # 1 my_data <raw 1.43 kB> Data to keep for later "" data.f… 2025-08-27 10:16:29

Retrieve an object from a box and remove it.

x<- pick("my_data")
identical(x, mtcars)
# [1] TRUE
remove("my_data")

Check if item is gone and delete box.

box()
# # A tibble: 0 × 6# # ℹ 6 variables: id <chr>, object <blob>, info <chr>, tags <chr>, class <chr>,# # changed <dttm>
box_delete("test")
boxes()
# # A tibble: 1 × 6# active name objects size last_modified created # <chr> <chr> <int> <fs::byte> <dttm> <dttm> # 1 ⠀ markheckmann 2 32.9M 2025-08-27 09:30:00 2024-03-25 13:50:49