# add rename rules to deal with special characters
**URL:** https://forum.syncthing.net/t/add-rename-rules-to-deal-with-special-characters/18940
**Category:** Android
**Created:** [September 7, 2022, 3:27pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/add-rename-rules-to-deal-with-special-characters/18940 "2022-09-07T15:27:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ZeeD](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/ZeeD)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2022, 3:27pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/add-rename-rules-to-deal-with-special-characters/18940/1 "2022-09-07T15:27:53Z")
Hi all! I’ve just discovered this tool. My needs are the following one:
- I have a linux pc with a “source” folder I want to keep in sync
- I also have a pair of android smartphones, where I want to set up a “destination” folder
I have installed both the desktop and mobile applications, and started syncing up, but the transfer is not stopped.
I see that the “ignored” files have “?” and “!” in the filenames, and I think this could be the reason to the stop.
I would like to understand if there is a way to configure syncthing to do some “translations” of the characters.
For example, let’s say that I have a file “hello!.txt” on my linux machine, I would like to add a rule, like \<\\>, and have syncthing to create “hello\_.txt” and treat it like the synced copy.
Is it possible to do?
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### Author:  [@tomasz86](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/tomasz86)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/add-rename-rules-to-deal-with-special-characters/18940/2 "2022-09-07T15:33:10Z")
No, what you want isn’t possible. There’s a work in progress at [https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/7876](https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/7876) that could possibly eleviate the issue, but no-one knows when/if it will be merged into Syncthing.
If you want those files to sync right now, you need to rename them on the Linux device. If you only want to hide the errors, you can add them to ignore patterns. The reason why you can’t sync them to Android is that the phones probably use FAT file system that has many limitations on which characters are allowed or not.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/add-rename-rules-to-deal-with-special-characters/18940/3 "2022-10-07T15:33:51Z")
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