Removing invalid characters in file names in bulk

[raujero]

Hi I am a windows 10 pro user and can't see many files that my Mac colleagues have placed in dropbox because of illegal characters (for windows). I can't sync them properly with my PC because I keep getting errors about invalid filenames.  Does anyone know of a clean way to change multiple file names or how to remove invalid characters in bulk? I thought of downloading the files to my pc and running a utility but there is 2tb of data and the transfer back and forth would take days if not weeks.  Appreciate any advice.

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Dropbox itself doesnt have a way of doing this and I cannot think of any way to do it if I'm honest.

The only thing I can think of is getting the Mac users to rename them, or, see if they can find a renaming script/app online

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[Ross_S]

Yes, there's no way for a Windows user to perform the rename as the files are on everyone else's systems, but not the Windows machine.

While you could use a script to make the change, I'd go about re-educating staff about this otherwise, it'll be a constant issue.

Simple internal reminders to not use certain characters in filenames should suffice.

This isn't a Dropbox specific issue, any time where windows and Macs are working in the same environment this can happen. Windows just can't have certain characters in filenames.