Improve file name handling for uploads (preserve readable file names)

Feature Requests
1

I’ve noticed an issue with how Glide handles file names when uploading documents into both single file and multiple file columns.

Although there is an option to “preserve file name on upload”, the resulting file names are not user-friendly. Special characters (such as spaces) are converted into encoded strings (e.g. %20), which makes the file names difficult to read and unprofessional in the UI.

Example (see screenshot attached):

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A file originally named:
Discussion Guide V2 Clean.docx

Is displayed as:
Discussion%20Guide%20V2%20Clean.docx

This creates a poor user experience, especially in apps where users need to quickly scan and select documents.

Why this matters:

  • Reduces readability and usability in file lists

  • Looks unpolished in client-facing apps

  • Makes version management harder (users can’t easily distinguish files)

  • Creates unnecessary friction when downloading or referencing files

Suggested improvements:

  1. Properly preserve original file names (including spaces and standard characters)

  2. Automatically decode URL-encoded characters for display (%20 → space)

  3. Option to display a clean label vs. the raw file name

  4. (Nice-to-have) Ability to edit or override the display name after upload

Expected behavior:

File names should appear exactly as uploaded, or at least in a clean, human-readable format.

This feels like a relatively small fix but would significantly improve the polish and usability of apps that rely on document handling.

Thanks in advance,

Simon.

2

As a workaround, have you tried replacing spaces with hyphens or underscores in the names of files?

3

Yes, that’s a good thought but my app is used by a lot of people at work and asking them all to adopt a file naming approach is probably not going to work…

4

+1

5

I use the Get Part of URL + Decode Text columns for this:

6

Solution!

7

Thanks Bob, super helpful and I will look to use it.

However, can you help me understand why the file name handling is managed automatically when I upload a file to a Basic URL column (using file picker component) and then display the URL? If Glide can manage all this automatically for a single file (see below screenshot), why can’t it for multiple files? I also think it is going to be tricky managing all those file names stored as an array in a multiple file column, extracting the correct file, parsing it and then serving up the URL to download again…. it begins to feel like a lot of work when Glide really should be doing this automatically the moment a file is uploaded - after all, there is an option to preserve the file name when uploading (that does not work 100%). Thoughts?

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