Sandboxie允许你在沙盘环境中运行浏览器或其他程序，因此运行所产生的变化可以随后删除。可用来消除上网、运行程序的痕迹，也可用来还原收藏夹、主页、注册表等。即使在沙盘进程中下载的文件，也会随着沙盘的清空而删除。此软件在系统托盘中运行，如果想启动一个沙盘进程，请通过托盘图标（而不要用原方式）启动浏览器或相应程序。

When you run a program on your computer, data flows from the hard disk to the program via read operations. The data is then processed and displayed, and finally flows back from the progam to the hard disk via write operations.

For example, if you run the Freecell program to play a game, it starts by reading the previously recorded statistics, displaying and altering them as you play the game, and finally writing them back to disk for future reference.

Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk.

The illustration shows the key component of Sandboxie: a transient storage area, or sandbox. Data flows in both directions between programs and the sandbox. During read operations, data may flow from the hard disk into the sandbox. But data never flows back from the sandbox into the hard disk.

If you run Freecell inside the Sandboxie environment, Sandboxie reads the statistics data from the hard disk into the sandbox, to satisfy the read requested by Freecell. When the game later writes the statistics, Sandboxie intercepts this operation and directs the data to the sandbox.

If you then run Freecell without the aid of Sandboxie, the read operation would bypass the sandbox altogether, and the statistics would be retrieved from the hard disk.

The transient nature of the sandbox makes it is easy to get rid of everything in it. If you were to throw away the sandbox, by deleting everything in it, the sandboxed statistics would be gone for good, as if they had never been there in the first place.