Rename filenames from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8, recursively

rename-iso88591-utf8.py

import os
import codecs

# Recursively rename files or folders from iso-8859-1 to utf-8
def rename_to_utf8(directory, what):
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(directory):
        for filename in (dirs if what == "dirs" else files):
            old_path = os.path.join(root, filename)

            # Decode the old filename from iso-8859-1
            try:
                decoded_filename = bytearray(filename, 'iso-8859-1')
            except UnicodeDecodeError:
                print(f"Skipping file '{filename}' as it cannot be decoded from iso-8859-1")
                continue

            # Encode the filename in utf-8
            new_filename = decoded_filename.decode('utf-8')

            # Construct the new file path
            new_path = os.path.join(root, new_filename)

            # Rename the file
            try:
                os.rename(old_path, new_path)
            except UnicodeEncodeError:
                print("Skipping "+old_path)

input_directory = "conversion"
rename_to_utf8(input_directory, "dirs")
rename_to_utf8(input_directory, "files")