Macintosh and Windows file name reference
The Macintosh Operating System uses the following file naming conventions:
- File and folder (directory) names may be up to 31 characters long; full path names are not limited to 260 characters (as they are on Win32 platforms).
- The colon (:) is used as a path separator.
- File and folder names may use any characters except the colon, which is the path separator. Characters such as ?, *, \, and / are perfectly legal in Macintosh file names.
- Although the Macintosh Operating System preserves the case of all file names, it does not distinguish between file names by case. (That is, file and folder names are not case-sensitive.
Windows Platforms use two different file systems -- the Protected-Mode File Allocation Table (FAT) file system and the New Technology File System (NTFS). These file systems have similar naming conventions, and differ mainly in which characters are illegal. The naming conventions listed below apply to both FAT and NTFS unless specifically noted.
- File and directory names may be up to 255 characters long on FAT file systems and 256 characters on NTFS. Full path names may be up to 260 characters long.
- The backslash (\) is the path separator.
- File and directory names on the Protected-Mode FAT file system may
consist of letters, digits, spaces, and these characters:
$%'-_@~`!{}()#&+,;=[].
Note that periods are allowed in file and directory names, as long as they are accompanied by other characters. For example, .text is perfectly legal.
On NTFS, file and directory names may consist of any character except the following characters:
"/\*?<>|: - Although file and directory names are not case-sensitive, their case is preserved.
Reference: Microsoft
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