Hi - I am trying to download some backup copies of many many files and folders, and several of the files have characters in their file names that Box allows but Windows doesn’t. I want to find the files with for example a colon (:) in the file name. Thanks
Question
How to find file names with special characters or punctuation
👋 Hi
The Box search engine ignores the following punctuation and special characters:
!"#$%&'()*+,\-./:;<=>?@[\\\]^_`{|}~. See Search for Files, Folders, and Content for reference.
While it isn’t available in the web UI to search for files with special characters, you can use your Admin tools instead.
Go to your Admin Console > Reports, then click the Export button on the Folders and Files (this will export a current snapshot of information about all folders and files). Type in the user’s email address and click Export. The excel file will be saved to your Box Reports folder.
From that Excel file, you can manually use the Find feature to look up files with special characters.
Feel free to reach out if you have any other concerns. 😊
Wow cool! Thanks! Only piece of info missing in your explanation was, Create Report, and that’s where you find the Files & Folders option - but very very cool! Thanks so much!
Much appreciated,
If you run into any other concerns, please don’t hesitate to let us know. 😊
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