Finding and opening safeboxes is one of the most enjoyable forms of crime in The Elder Scrolls Online — and it can be highly rewarding! In this guide, learn how to find safeboxes in ESO, how to open them, and why you should do so. In addition to rendering valuable Treasures, opening a safebox in every ESO Zone provides an incredibly bright gold dye — 10-Year Anniversary Gold Leaf!
After realizing that finding and opening safeboxes gives you one of the best gold dyes in the game, I’ve been doing a lot of safebox hunting recently, which inspired me to make a guide on how to find safeboxes, how to open them, and what you can get from doing so.
In this guide, I’m going to cover everything you need to know about safeboxes in The Elder Scrolls Online.
What are safeboxes in ESO?
Safeboxes are small, silvery metallic boxes scattered around the world of The Elder Scrolls Online. You have to break into a safebox to open it, which is a crime and requires either lockpicking or forcing the lock.
Safeboxes are found in towns and other non-combat NPC areas, and the locks on them range from Simple to Master difficulty. Safeboxes with tougher locks give you more Legerdemain XP, and they also seem to contain better rewards — but that’s a point of contention within the community.
Safeboxes mainly contain gold and Treasures you can fence at an Outlaws Refuge, but they can also contain Furnishing Plans and Antiquity Leads. If you keep farming them, you can get some pretty great rewards through achievements.
Opening safeboxes is a form of crime in ESO. If you’re caught, you’ll get a bounty.
But, hunting down safeboxes is really fun. Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy. And what you get both within safeboxes and from opening them can be well worth the chase.
What rewards can you get from safeboxes in ESO?
Safeboxes in The Elder Scrolls Online can contain gold, Treasures, Furnishing Plans, and Antiquity Leads. Also, opening a safebox in every ESO zone rewards a rare dye, 10-Year Anniversary Gold Leaf.
Let’s dive into the rewards you can get from safeboxes in a bit more detail. Like I mentioned, you can find Treasures. You’ll most commonly get white, green, and blue treasures from safeboxes, but occasionally you might find a purple one as well.
It’s also possible to find Furnishing Diagrams in safeboxes, but those drops are a lot rare. Something else you can get from opening safeboxes is Antiquity Leads. Some Antiquity Leads only come from safeboxes.
So, whether you’re hunting down furnishings or pieces of Mythics, opening safeboxes is simply something you might have to do.
How do you get 10-Year Anniversary Gold Leaf dye in ESO?
You get the 10-Year Anniversary Gold Leaf dye by opening a safebox in every single zone in The Elder Scrolls Online. As a result, safeboxes aren’t only a great way to farm gold, Treasures, Furnishings, and Antiquity leads — if you grind out a safebox in every single zone, you’ll also get an amazing dye.
Where are safeboxes located in ESO?
Safeboxes are located in towns and other NPC areas in The Elder Scrolls Online. They’re often located near merchants, in crafting areas, or inside NPC homes. Usually, safeboxes are located within range of NPCs who can witness you breaking into them.
This is not really an exact science. You can start to predict where you’ll find safeboxes if you do it enough, but to a large degree, it is random.
So, instead of going through every single safebox location, I’ll talk more about the general rules you should follow to hunt these down.
What is the difference between safeboxes and treasure chests in ESO?
Safeboxes are only found in towns and other NPC areas. You will not find them in the rest of the Overland of the Elder Scrolls Online. Instead, you might find Thieves Troves and treasure chests, but safeboxes are found exclusively in NPC areas.
Can NPCs catch you breaking into safeboxes in ESO?
Safeboxes almost always spawn in places where NPCs can see you. This is by design, I think, because it should be a bit of a challenge. If safeboxes were commonly in out-of-the-way areas where you couldn’t be caught, it wouldn’t be much of a crime.
I have found a few safeboxes in places where NPCs don’t path to. But in almost every case, they’re found around NPCs — in places where an NPC could technically see you.
Where in towns are safeboxes located in ESO?
In ESO towns, safeboxes are almost always found inside buildings. Whether i’s an inn, the Fighters Guild, the Mages Guild, a palace, etc., when looking for safeboxes, usually the first place to look is inside buildings.
Safeboxes also at least seem to be more commonly found in buildings you have to break into. These are buildings where when you go to the door, you’ll see text saying “Unlock” and the difficulty level of unlocking the door.
Simply unlock it, go inside, and you are more likely to find a safebox in one of these areas anywhere else.
Somewhere else you will commonly find safeboxes is near merchants. If you simply wait for the merchant NPC to path away, you can usually sneak around and get it without anyone noticing you.
You will find sometimes find safeboxes in or near crafting areas in ESO towns.
Those are your general rules for finding safeboxes:
- They’re going to be places where NPCs can see you in non-combat areas — NPC villages, towns, etc.
- You’ll often find them near merchants
- You’ll find them inside buildings, and you’ll find them in crafting areas.
How do you open safeboxes in ESO?
Like a treasure chest or a locked door, you will need to lockpick a safebox to open it in ESO. This is made easier by investing in the Legerdemain skill line. You can level this up by opening treasure chests, locked doors, and safeboxes — also by selling and laundering items to a Fence in an Outlaws Refuge.
In the Legerdemain skill line, the passives that actually help you with getting into safeboxes are:
- Improved Hiding, which makes it easier to sneak.
- Trafficker, which lets you fence more treasures.
- Kickback, which reduces the amount of bounty you have to pay if you get caught.
- Locksmith, which increases your chance of forcing locks increased by 70% with all 4 skill points invested.
Is forcing locks better than lockpicking in ESO?
Forcing locks is way easier than lockpicking. Even with a controller that offers haptic feedback, lockpicking is annoying. So, the Legerdemain passive Locksmith is something you’re definitely going to want to invest into.
What is Tanlorin’s Finesse in ESO?
The passive ability Tanlorin’s Finesse provides assistance with opening locks in ESO, including safebox locks. This is active whenever you have Tanlorin out as a Companion.
But, if you complete Tanlorin’s achievement, A Bloom on the Horizon, Tanlorin’s Finesse will be active on all players on your account. It is account-wide and you don’t have to have Tanlorin out to access this bonus.
Tanlorin’s finesse basically makes it easier to lockpick anything. It’s definitely worth investing in this passive.
Which Champion nodes help with safeboxes in ESO?
There are a few nodes in the Craft Champion Tree that can help out with safeboxes:
- Friends in Low Places, which reduces your bounty if you are caught.
- Infamous, which increases the value of items you fence.
- Fortune’s Favor, which gives you a bit more gold from safeboxes.
Most safeboxes can be forced with one or two tries once you do have the Locksmith passive. With Advanced and Master difficulty safebox locks, you may still need to pick them, but I generally at least try to force them first.
Tanlorin’s Finesse also reduces the likelihood that your lockpick will break if you try and fail to force a lock.
How do you avoid getting caught when stealing from safeboxes in ESO?
First and most obviously, just make sure you’re Hidden. You do this by crouching and waiting a few moments. The eye icon that appears does not need to be all the way shut for you to be hidden, the text just needs to not say “Detected.”
But even if the eye is only partially shut, you can still break into a safebox without being caught. That partially open eye is just there to warn you there’s an NPC who might see you soon, so you should be careful.
NPCs have predictable pathing. So if one is looking at you while you’re trying to get a safebox, you can just wait until they turn around again and then pick it.
Do invisibility potions help with crime in ESO?
Yes, Invisibility Potions help with crimes like opening safeboxes by temporarily make you invisible — so NPCs cannot see you even if they’re looking right at you.
How do you get rid of witnesses to crimes in ESO?
If you’re a Vampire or you’ve started the Dark Brotherhood questline, you can use either the Vampire’s Feed ability or the Blade of Woe to get rid of NPCs before they witness you doing any crimes. You can also use the Werewolf’s new Slaughter ability.
What do counterfeit pardon edicts do in ESO?
A single Counterfeit Pardon Edict takes away 500 gold of your bounty in The Elder Scrolls Online. These are commonly found in Thieves Troves. You can also get them as rewards for certain events. They are bound, so they are not tradable.
What happens if you’re caught by a guard in ESO?
If you get caught by a guard, you’ll either need to pay your bounty or run away. So, you may want to preemptively get rid of your bounty by going to an Outlaws Refuge. If you have a bounty, you can clear it by going and talking to the Fence.
Should I sell or launder treasures in ESO?
There’s no point in laundering Treasures — you can’t use them for anything, so it’s best to sell them. There is a limit on the number of treasures you can sell per day. So, if you do hit that limit, just come back after the daily reset to unload the rest of your inventory.
Long story short:
- Just don’t let anyone see you while you’re opening safeboxes.
- Either wait for the NPCs to path away, or if they are NPCs you can kill, get rid of them with Feed or the Blade of Woe.
- You can also use Invisibility Potions.
- Just make sure you’re fully Hidden or that eye icon is just slightly open, but the text still says “Hidden” before you try cracking open a safebox.
Are safeboxes worth it in ESO?
Yes, safeboxes are worth hunting down and opening in ESO. First of all, this is a great way to level your Legerdemain Skill Line. It’s also a great way to farm gold.
Plus, hunting down safeboxes is really fun. The whole process of seeking and finding them, making sure you don’t get caught, and then getting paid at the end is a really rewarding and casual gameplay loop that I recommend everybody tries out.
But perhaps most importantly, there’s a really amazing reward you get if you do farm a safebox in every single zone. I’m talking about the 10-Year Anniversary Gold Leaf dye.
Yes, this does require that you go to every single zone in the game and farm a safebox. It was bugged at the beginning and you only had to do 34 of these zones, but now I have double-checked and it is every single zone.
Which achievement gives 10-Year Anniversary Gold Dye in ESO?
This achievement is located under Character > Anniversary, and it’s called Commemorative Safebox Looter. It’s a very bright gold dye, unlike Divine Gold, which is more orange. This is really a yellow-gold dye. Very shiny, very beautiful — highly recommended.
Conclusion
That’s about the long and short of it when it comes to safeboxes in ESO. We’ve covered what safeboxes are, what they contain, how to find them, and how to open them without getting caught.
We’ve even talked about some of the extra rewards you can get for opening safeboxes, like an amazing golden dye. If you take the time to hunt them down and open them, safeboxes can be really rewarding.
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