OneDrive Syncing Issues – Renaming Directories and Files by Removing Control Characters

clean_control_names.py

import os
import re
import unicodedata

def clean_name(name, replace_space_with=None):
    """
    Remove invalid file name chars from the specified name

    :param name: the file name
    :param replace_space_with: if not none replace space with this string
    :return: a valid name for Win/Mac/Linux
    """

    # ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename
    # ref: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4814040/allowed-characters-in-filename
    # ref: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/onedrive-can-rename-files-with-invalid-characters-99333564-c2ed-4e78-8936-7c773e958881
    # Invalid chars " * : < > ? / \ |
    # No control chars, no: /, \, ?, %, *, :, |, ", <, >

    # remove control chars
    name = ''.join(ch for ch in name if unicodedata.category(ch)[0] != 'C')

    cleaned_name = re.sub(r'[/\\?%*:|"<>]', '', name)
    if replace_space_with is not None:
        return cleaned_name.replace(' ', replace_space_with)
    return cleaned_name

def main():
    for dir, subdirs, files in os.walk("."):

        print("[Renaming Directories ...]")
        for d in subdirs:
            src_dir = dir + os.path.join(os.sep, d)
            dst_dir = dir + os.path.join(os.sep, clean_name(d))

            try:
                os.rename(src_dir, dst_dir)
            except Exception as err:
                raise err

            print("{} renamed.".format(src_dir))

        print("[Renaming Files ...]")
        for f in files:
            src_file = dir + os.path.join(os.sep, f)
            dst_file = dir + os.path.join(os.sep, clean_name(f))

            try:
                os.rename(src_file, dst_file)
            except Exception as err:
                raise err

            print("{} renamed.".format(src_file))
    
if __name__ == "__main__":
    """
    Need to run this in `python3`.
    """
    main()

All you have to do is issue python3 clean_file_names.py from the terminal and it will do the rest. Hope that helps out in case you need it.

Details about why OneDrive won't sync files.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/onedrive-can-rename-files-with-invalid-characters-99333564-c2ed-4e78-8936-7c773e958881

Invalid Control Characters where OneDrive syncing application cannot rename.
" * : < > ? / \ |

When looking at a file in Mac OS X Finder I couldn't see the Control Characters until I went to a terminal window. For example see the extra '?' character right before the word "Ideas".

ztraboo@130-127-116-159 Test RegEx % ls -la
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 ztraboo staff 55226 Mar 13 2014 CUCWD106 Safety Module 6 and 9 ? Ideas for visualization.docx

Solution
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4814040/allowed-characters-in-filename