Failed items for markdown files

[Cheer1]

I have synced a folder containing almost exclusively markdown files (my Obsidian.md vault) from my Mac to the Android phone.

The process went smoothly, but there are 26 failed items that refused to sync. They are listed as “Failed items”.

I don’t want to share the exact file name if not necessary, but they all contain some special characters, most notably ?.

Please help me figure out why those items don’t want to sync to my mobile device.

[imsodin (Simon)]

Because android doesn’t allow filenames with ? in the name (and some other characters).

[gadget]

@Cheer1

I don’t want to share the exact file name if not necessary, but they all contain some special characters, most notably ?.

Please help me figure out why those items don’t want to sync to my mobile device.

For user storage, Android – with some exceptions – for various reasons uses a FAT-based filesystem. It’s also a commonly used filesystem on smaller capacity USB flash drives/sticks, especially when there’s a need for portability between Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.

FAT reserves a set of special characters/symbols for internal use, so they cannot be used in file and folder names: " * / : < > ? \ |

For more details, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_the_FAT_file_system

[tomasz86]

This topic comes up a lot (e.g. see https://forum.syncthing.net/t/android-syncing-error/22482 from just a few days ago).

I think it may be a good idea to add this to the FAQ or even mention in the app itself on the first run.

[Cheer1]

@gadget

FAT reserves a set of special characters/symbols for internal use, so they cannot be used in file and folder names: " * / : < > ? \ |

That’s a lot of characters that find a use case for me. Is there any workaround you could suggest?

For now, I’m probably going to search and replace, but I would like to know if the only solution is to not use those characters.

[gadget]

@Cheer1

@gadget

FAT reserves a set of special characters/symbols for internal use, so they cannot be used in file and folder names: " * / : < > ? \ |

That’s a lot of characters that find a use case for me. Is there any workaround you could suggest?

Unfortunately no, there’s no getting around the FAT (includes exFAT) and NTFS limitations. They were designed for compatibility with Windows, where the 9 characters have special meaning – e.g. when a file in a FAT filesystem is deleted, the first character of the filename is replaced with a ? to mark the file available for being overwritten with new data.

For now, I’m probably going to search and replace, but I would like to know if the only solution is to not use those characters.

If you’re open to replacing the OEM Android and your phone is supported by LineageOS, GrapheneOS, or one of the other AOSP-based variants of Android, there are better filesystem choices, but even that isn’t without its caveats.