Can't Change Capitalization On Android With It Saying The File Already Exists

Help
1

Any time I need to change the title on my document to capitalize it on Android it always tells me that the file already exists after I click off the title.

All you have to do to reproduce it is:

  1. Create a document
  2. Click into the note off of the title
  3. Go back on the title and capitalize a letter
  4. Click go back into the note
    Voila! “File already exists”
2 Likes
2

Workaround: change it to something else first (for example by adding a letter), then change it again to the name you want.

3

Thanks, I had already found I workaround.

I just wanted to report it as a bug to be fixed.

4

I don’t think it’s a bug of Obsidian, but more a feature of the Android (and possibly some other) file systems.

1 Like
5

I think Obsidian itself doesn’t allow files in the same folder to differ only by capitalization, because internal links are case insensitive (tho also some file systems have the same issue). Obsidian could probably communicate more clearly about it, tho.

6

I can reproduce this bug (on Android).

7

As I elluded to earlier this is not a bug of Obsidian, but a feature of Android, see Isn't Android File.exists() case sensitive? - Stack Overflow.

That Stack Overflow answer illustrates that Android needs to handle either case due to potentially connected devices and such, and so while the underlying file system can handle files which just differ in case, it’s a system choice to call these files identical.

So you need to use the workaround of renaming into something else first, before you can rename back to the same file name with a different casing.

Update: Moved post to Help since this isn’t a bug within Obsidian

8

What will happen if you Rename PC note note1 to NOTE1 with Sync?

9

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.