convmv

Preview converting filenames from Latin1 to UTF-8

$ convmv -f latin1 -t utf-8 [path/to/files/*]

$ convmv -f latin1 -t utf-8 --notest [path/to/files/*]

$ convmv -f latin1 -t utf-8 -r --notest [path/to/directory]

$ convmv -f cp1252 -t utf-8 --notest [path/to/files/*]

$ convmv --lower --notest [path/to/files/*]

$ convmv --fixdouble -f utf-8 -t utf-8 --notest [path/to/files/*]

convmv [options] file...

convmv is a utility for converting filenames between different character encodings. It's essential when files created on one system with a particular locale need to be used on another system with a different character encoding.
Common use cases include migrating files from Windows (using cp1252 or ISO-8859-1) to Linux with UTF-8, or fixing filenames that were created with incorrect encoding assumptions. The tool can also fix double-encoded UTF-8, which occurs when UTF-8 bytes are mistakenly encoded as UTF-8 again.
By default, convmv performs a dry run showing what would be changed. The --notest flag must be explicitly provided to actually rename files. This safety feature prevents accidental mass renaming operations.

-f ENCODING

Source encoding (from encoding).

Target encoding (to encoding).

Recurse into subdirectories.

Actually perform the conversion (default is dry run).

Normalize to Unicode NFC form.

Normalize to Unicode NFD form.

Convert filenames to lowercase.

Convert filenames to uppercase.

Fix double-encoded UTF-8 filenames.

List available encodings.

Preserve modification times on directories.

Always run without --notest first to preview changes. The tool cannot detect the source encoding automatically; you must know what encoding was used originally. Converting to a less expressive encoding may cause data loss. Symbolic links and hard links require careful handling.

convmv was written by Langsweirdt and has been a standard tool for handling encoding issues on Unix systems. It became particularly important during the transition from locale-specific encodings to UTF-8 as the universal standard in the 2000s.

mv(1), rename(1), iconv(1), recode(1)