Spaces in Filenames
One setting decides whether spaces in uploaded filenames are replaced with underscores.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Configuration:
- Site Settings — the File Uploads and Audio/Video Conversion groups
Where spaces cause trouble
- In addresses — a space has to be encoded, and a filename appearing in a link is a filename that will be encoded inconsistently somewhere.
- In command-line handling — anything processing files outside the platform.
- In copied links — a pasted address containing an encoded space breaks in messages and documents.
- Across systems — export, import, synchronisation, backup.
Where they do not
In the platform itself, where a stored filename is handled properly. If files are only ever uploaded, listed and downloaded through the interface, spaces are harmless.
Decide by what happens to the files
Files that stay inside the platform can keep their names as the user typed them, which is friendlier. Files that leave — into a share, an integration, a link somebody pastes into an e-mail — are better without spaces.
Consistency matters more than the choice
Either setting is defensible. What causes problems is changing it midway, so half your files have spaces and half do not, and anything matching filenames has to handle both.
Set it before there are files
Because it applies on upload. Existing files keep the names they were given, so a change produces a split library rather than a converted one.
It is not the same as safe names
The separate safe-name setting handles the genuinely problematic characters — accents, symbols, control characters, path separators. Spaces are a usability question; those are a correctness one.
Turn safe names on regardless of what you do about spaces.
Users notice
Somebody who uploads "Annual Report 2026.pdf" and downloads "Annual_Report_2026.pdf" will ask why. It is a small thing and worth a line of explanation next to the upload field if you have set it.
Worked example
An organisation replaces spaces because its files are synchronised to a shared drive and referenced in generated documents. It set this at installation, so the whole library is consistent, and the upload field says filenames will be simplified.
Recommendations
- Replace spaces if files leave the platform.
- Set it before there are files — it is not retrospective.
- Turn safe names on regardless.
- Tell users if names will change.