Sandbox Account Linking

With Sandbox Account Linking, you can now link your existing “unlinked” Sandbox accounts with your Live PayPal Developer accounts. Prior to releasing this new feature, the only way to test in the Sandbox using a linked account was to first create the account using the developer Sandbox Accounts feature in the PayPal Developer portal.

Use Cases

Account Created Using PayPal Sandbox Site — The user first creates a Sandbox account when testing via www.sandbox.paypal.com and then wants to link the Sandbox account with a Live PayPal Developer account, so that it shows up on Sandbox Accounts page.

Account Created Using PayPal Demo Site — The user is automatically provisioned a Sandbox account when trying PayPal via demo.paypal.com and then wants to link the Sandbox account with a Live PayPal Developer account, so that it shows up on Sandbox Accounts page.

Additionally, Sandbox Account Linking will permit the linking of a Developer account to a Sandbox account, even if the Sandbox account was created for a country that is not supported by the Sandbox Accounts Create Page.

How To Link Accounts

If you already have a Sandbox account that’s not linked to a Live PayPal Developer account, here are the steps to link the two accounts:

• Log in at developer.paypal.com using your Live PayPal credentials and navigate to Dashboard in the site header
• Click on Accounts under the Sandbox heading in the left navigation
• On the resulting Sandbox Accounts page, click on the “link existing Sandbox Account” feature
• Provide your Sandbox account credentials for the account you want to link

On successful authentication, you will be asked to grant permission to continue as shown below:

Authentication will fail if you attempt to link a Sandbox account that is already linked to a Live PayPal developer account.

On clicking Agree, you will be redirected back to Sandbox Accounts page, where the account will be listed as one of your test accounts.

We hope you enjoy the added flexibility the Sandbox Account Linking feature provides!

Author: Rahul Panjrath
About the author: I am Software Engineer @Braintree|PayPal since April 2014, part of the team responsible for https://developer.paypal.com. Coding is my passion and I love to break things daily ;). I graduated from San Jose State University and I have been in the software industry coding for almost 9 years and I am still learning new things everyday. That’s the best part which makes me love the work I do. I specialize in web programming, REST APIs development, TDD etc.

I can be reached at:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulpanjrath
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rahulpanjrath
• Email: rapanjrath@paypal.com