What is Sandbox and the Type of Sandbox in Salesforce?

Posted by Vinay Vernekar 28th January 2026

What is a Salesforce Sandbox?

A Salesforce Sandbox is an isolated copy of your production Salesforce environment used for development, testing, training, and configuration without affecting live production data and users. Sandboxes allow admins and developers to safely build and test changes (code, configuration, automation, integrations) before deploying those changes to production.

Key benefits

Sandboxes provide:

  • Safe environment to develop and test changes
  • Ability to train users with realistic data (where permitted)
  • Support for release testing, QA, and integration verification
  • Metadata and (optionally) data separation from production

Types of Sandboxes in Salesforce

Salesforce provides multiple sandbox types. Each type differs by purpose, storage limits, data replication, and refresh interval. Choose a sandbox type based on the scope of testing and available licenses.

Developer Sandbox

Developer sandboxes are intended for coding and configuration tasks at the component level. They include a copy of your production metadata (objects, fields, code, layouts) but contain minimal sample data.

  • Metadata: Full (same metadata as production)
  • Data: Small subset (developer records only; typically no large datasets)
  • Storage: Low
  • Refresh interval: Typically 1 day
  • Use cases: Individual developer work, unit testing, build/config tasks

Developer Pro Sandbox

Developer Pro sandboxes are similar to Developer sandboxes but with larger storage. They are suitable when developers need more data to test inter-object relationships or larger datasets.

  • Metadata: Full
  • Data: More records than Developer sandbox (still limited)
  • Storage: Higher than Developer
  • Refresh interval: Typically 1 day
  • Use cases: Developer testing with larger sample data, integration unit tests

Partial Copy Sandbox

Partial Copy sandboxes include all metadata and a subset of production data defined by a Sandbox Template. They’re ideal for testing business processes and integrations with more realistic but limited data.

  • Metadata: Full
  • Data: Subset chosen via Sandbox Template (includes standard and custom object records)
  • Storage: Medium
  • Refresh interval: Typically 5 days
  • Use cases: UAT, QA, integration testing with representative data

Full Sandbox

Full sandboxes are complete replicas of your production organization, including all metadata and data (records, files, attachments, and attachments/reports). They are the closest match to production and are used for final-stage testing and full-scale performance or load testing.

  • Metadata: Full
  • Data: Full copy of production data (subject to storage limits)
  • Storage: Highest
  • Refresh interval: Typically 29 days (may vary by edition)
  • Use cases: Final UAT, performance, load testing, training with real data

Sandbox Templates

For Partial Copy and Full sandboxes (where supported), you can create Sandbox Templates to control which objects and data slices are copied. Templates help keep sandbox size manageable and ensure relevant records are available for testing.

Refresh Intervals and Limits

Each sandbox type has a refresh interval enforced by Salesforce. Refreshing a sandbox replaces its contents with a new copy from production. Know your org’s sandbox license allocation and refresh cadence to plan work appropriately.

Common Best Practices

  • Use Developer sandboxes for isolated developer tasks and feature branches.
  • Use Partial Copy for QA/UAT with representative datasets.
  • Reserve Full sandboxes for release verification and load/performance tests.
  • Keep sensitive data masked or anonymized in sandboxes if production copies are used.
  • Document sandbox refresh schedules to avoid losing in-progress work.

Quick Reference (JSON)

Simple mapping of sandbox types and their characteristics:

{
"Developer": {"metadata":"full","data":"minimal","refresh":"1 day"},
"DeveloperPro": {"metadata":"full","data":"low","refresh":"1 day"},
"PartialCopy": {"metadata":"full","data":"subset (template)","refresh":"5 days"},
"Full": {"metadata":"full","data":"full production copy","refresh":"29 days"}
}

Conclusion

Choosing the right sandbox type depends on the testing scope, dataset size, and available sandbox licenses. For everyday development use Developer or Developer Pro, for integration and UAT use Partial Copy, and for production-like testing use Full.

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