OneDrive sync fails because filename starts with a space

Windows (and, it seems, Microsoft in general) does not like filenames that start with a space. You can’t even create them in Windows Explorer — go ahead and try! If you start the name of a file or folder with a space, Windows will remove the space for you — automatically. Frustrating, eh?

Regardless, there’s sufficient ways to wind off with a file that starts with a space, and inevitably, if you use OneDrive, you’ll get sync errors, because OneDrive (being Microsoft) does not like filenames that start with a space.

The logical step would be to rename the file in Windows Explorer and remove the leading space — but that doesn’t work; Windows will tell you that the filename already exists. (Apparently, those spaces are ignored in more places than one.)

So how do you solve this? Two ways.

  1. Rename the file to something entirely new without a leading space.
  2. Open a command prompt and type this:
    ren ” myfile.txt” “myfile.txt”

The command prompt lets you use spaces (provided they are in double quotes), and will (accurately) know that a file name with a leading space is not the same as the same file name without the leading space.

Best solution? Avoid the darn spaces altogether.