Replacing Spaces in Filenames

Spaces in filenames are valid almost everywhere but cause persistent friction — URLs need encoding, command-line tools choke, some HTTP middleware mangles them. ActiveManage offers a built-in option to replace spaces at upload time so downstream tooling never trips.

Setting showing 'Replace spaces in filenames with' radio buttons: Underscore (_), Hyphen (-), Nothing (concatenate), with a sample showing 'My Photo.jpg' becoming 'My_Photo.jpg' / 'My-Photo.jpg' / 'MyPhoto.jpg'

Replacement Choices

Underscore (_): Most common. Reads fine, machine-friendly.
Hyphen (-): SEO-friendly for files served directly from URLs.
Nothing: Concatenate without separator. Compact but unreadable; rare choice.
Off: Keep spaces as-is. Default. Works for most modern systems but exposes any tooling weaknesses.

When to Replace

Files served directly from public URLs — hyphens are best for SEO.
Files passed through legacy systems that don't handle spaces well.
Files that will be processed by command-line scripts that need quoting otherwise.
Anywhere you suspect URL-encoding will introduce inconsistency.

Worked Examples

Media library: Replace with hyphens so URLs like /files/my-product-photo.jpg are clean.
Internal document store: Replace with underscores; users still see the original filename in the UI (the platform preserves the original in a separate field for display).
API-only uploads: Off — API callers handle their own naming.

Note: The original filename is always preserved in the database as a display label. Only the stored-file's filename is normalised. Users see the friendly name in the UI even if the backing file is renamed.