When developing or customizing your Salesforce org, working directly in Production is risky. That’s where Salesforce Sandboxes come in — secure, isolated environments where you can safely build, test, and train without impacting your live data or users.
In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into:
- What is a Salesforce Sandbox?
- The 4 Types of Sandboxes
- Sandbox Templates and History
- Sandbox Licenses
- How to Log In to a Sandbox
What is a Salesforce Sandbox?
A Salesforce Sandbox is a replica of your Production environment, used for development, testing, and training. It lets teams build and validate features without disturbing the live environment. This isolation ensures your end-users aren’t impacted by experimental or untested changes.
Each sandbox can be refreshed (updated from production) at different intervals based on its type.
Types of Salesforce Sandboxes
Salesforce provides four main types of sandboxes, each with different capabilities and intended use cases.
1. Developer Sandbox
- Purpose: Development & unit testing
- Data: Configuration only (metadata), no production data
- Storage: 200 MB
- Refresh Interval: Once per day
A Developer Sandbox is ideal for individual developers to write Apex code, build Lightning components, and test small-scale changes.
Use Case: A developer wants to create and test a new Apex trigger without affecting live users.
2. Developer Pro Sandbox
- Purpose: Development with more storage
- Data: Configuration only (metadata)
- Storage: 1 GB
- Refresh Interval: Once per day
Think of Developer Pro as a boosted version of Developer Sandbox. It supports more data and is great for integration testing, user training, or QA tasks that need more room.
Use Case: A QA team needs to simulate a more realistic org setup with test data and custom integrations.
3. Partial Copy Sandbox
- Purpose: Testing, UAT, integration, and training
- Data: Metadata + sample data (defined by a Sandbox Template)
- Storage: 5 GB
- Refresh Interval: Every 5 days
A Partial Copy Sandbox is perfect for environments where both configurations and sample data are needed for realistic testing. It allows teams to do user acceptance testing (UAT) and training using real-world scenarios.
Use Case: UAT for a new Sales Cloud customization with realistic Account and Opportunity records.
4. Full Sandbox
- Purpose: Performance testing, load testing, staging
- Data: Complete copy of production (metadata + all data)
- Storage: Same as production
- Refresh Interval: Every 29 days
A Full Sandbox is your go-to for a 1:1 clone of your live org — ideal for final testing before going live. You can simulate real data loads, complex business processes, and user journeys exactly as they’ll occur in production.
Exclude Field History Tracking and Chatter Activity unless absolutely required. These can significantly increase copy time and storage.
Use Case: A team wants to stress-test a new feature under production-like conditions before deployment.
How to Log In to a Salesforce Sandbox
- Go to: https://test.salesforce.com
- Enter your sandbox username:
Format:yo******@*********om.sandboxname
(e.g.,sa****@********nt.com.dev1) - Use the same password as production (unless you’ve changed it in the sandbox).
- Forgot password? Use the “Forgot Your Password?” link on the sandbox login page.
Final Thoughts
Salesforce Sandboxes are essential tools for developers, testers, and admins. Understanding the types and their best use cases allows teams to build better apps, reduce risk, and improve overall Salesforce implementation quality.
Summary Table
| Sandbox Type | Data Included | Storage | Refresh Limit | Ideal For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | Metadata only | 200 MB | 1 day | Coding & unit testing |
| Developer Pro | Metadata only | 1 GB | 1 day | Testing with more storage |
| Partial Copy | Metadata + sample data | 5 GB | 5 days | UAT, integration testing |
| Full | Full data + metadata | Prod size | 29 days | Performance/load/staging testing |
If you found this post useful, feel free to share it with your team or drop your comments below. For more detail check here
