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Designing macrocycles with appropriate molecular recognition features that allow for the integration of suitable external stimuli to control host–guest processes is a challenging endeavor which enables molecular containers to solubilize, stabilize, and separate chemical entities in an externally controllable manner. Herein, we introduce photo- and thermal-responsive elements into a semi-rigid tetracationic cyclophane, OPVEx²Box⁴⁺, that is composed of oligo(p-phenylenevinylene) pyridinium units and the biphenylene-bridged 4,4-bipyridinium extended viologens and adopts a rectangle-like geometry. It transpires that when the photoactive oligo(p-phenylenevinylene) pyridinium unit is incorporated in a macrocyclic scaffold, its reversibility is dramatically improved, and the configurations of the cyclophane can go back and forth between (EE)- and (EZ)-isomers upon alternating blue light irradiation and heating. When …