Known Participant

Question

Can't import files with '/' in filename

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 19, 2022
3 replies
601 views

Importing my Pictures Folder, I'm finding that Lightroom won't import any file with '/' in its name, nor any file that has a parent folder with '/' in its name. Many other image browsers can handle this. Is there a setting in Lightroom to cause it to not see '/' in a path component as an error?

macOS

This topic has been closed for replies.

johnrellis

Legend

"/" is indeed a legal file name character on Mac OS, and it's a very old bug that LR doesn't handle it properly. But I very much doubt Adobe will ever fix the bug.

I retested a bunch of programs on my Mac, and they all correctly opened the file "a/b.png": Finder, Photoshop, Firefox, Acrobat Pro, Chrome, Safari, Imovie, Onenote, Word.

See this bug report for more details on how Mac OS treats "/" in file names:

https://feedback-readonly.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-cant-import-files-whose-name-contains-a/5f5f45514b561a3d42430002

John Waller

Community Expert

"/" is indeed a legal file name character on Mac OS

Even though that is true, since Lightroom is cross-platform I would have thought Adobe would stick to cross-platform limitations to promote best practice cross-platform file naming conventions.

johnrellis

Legend

"I would have thought Adobe would stick to cross-platform limitations to promote best practice cross-platform file naming conventions."

If that was the intention, LR does a poor job of implementing it:

- Windows File Explorer won't let you name a file containing any of * ? " < > |, but Mac LR happily imports file names containing those characters.

- Though Mac LR won't let you import a file name containing \ / : you can rename a file in the Metadata panel to contain those characters.

Michael J. Hoffman

Community Expert

The "/" is a special character to the operating system, and it is not allowed to be in filenames (or folder names) ever. This is an operating system restriction, and is not related to Lightroom specifically.

In some Unix-based systems, you can "trick" the OS to have a "/" character in the name using some escape sequences, but it is normally forbidden.

L

LED LabsAuthor

Known Participant

I'm a Linux/iOS programmer. I know that a '/' is generally a path component separator. But the Finder allows it to be used in file and folder names. And other photo browsing software handles it just fine. (I assume they do so by escaping the '/' in the file path.) So why can't Lightroom handle it?

dj_paige

Legend

Lightroom Classic does not run on Linux/iOS

dj_paige

Legend

I don't think so.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded