Power Platform Community Forum Thread Details

Hello everyone,

I’m running into an issue when using Get files (properties only) in Power Automate to retrieve a specific SharePoint folder by its name.

The folder name contains an apostrophe (').

Example pattern: Something l'emploi

I’m using this OData filter:

ContentType eq 'Folder' and FileLeafRef eq 'Something l'emploi'

This fails with: The file or folder cannot be found.

I tried escaping the apostrophe (as required by OData) like this:

ContentType eq 'Folder' and FileLeafRef eq 'Something l''emploi'

But the query still does not match the folder, even though the folder does exist.

Other tests:

Removing the filter works (it returns all folders)
Filtering on names with no apostrophes works
The issue happens only when an apostrophe is in the folder name
Using substringof() also fails when the value contains '

My Question

Is there a correct or supported way to filter FileLeafRef values that contain an apostrophe using the SharePoint connector OData $filter?

Or is this a known limitation of the SharePoint connector?

I would appreciate any insight or examples.

Thanks!

 "body": {
        "status": 400,
        "message": "The expression \"ContentType eq 'Folder' and FileLeafRef eq 'pour l'emploi'\" is not valid. Creating query failed.\r\nclientRequestId: 418a25d1-f5ae-40ab-997e-81b9951dfe10\r\nserviceRequestId: 855ddaa1-50da-a000-7f85-05d3235e677b"
    }
}

Categories:

General topics

Hi @jseb04

Your query is almost correct. I think the query needs to be:

 FSObjType eq 1  and FileLeafRef eq 'Something l''emploi'

FSObjType eq 1 will return Folders only and any folder or file names with apostrophes must use two apostrophes instead of one:

In the expression below we take the folder name and double any apostrophes so that it is safe to use in an OData filter query:

replace(variables('varFolderName'),'''','''''')

The expression above looks messy because of how Power Automate escapes apostrophes. Text values are wrapped in single quotes, and a real apostrophe inside that text is written by doubling it. So, in practice:

''''   = one apostrophe  (')
'''''' = two apostrophes ('')

For information about this, please see : Power Automate: Get Only Files (Exclude Folders) from a SharePoint Library – Ellis Karim's Blog

Ellis Karim
elliskarim.com | LinkedIn | Bluesky

If this solved your issue, please mark it as ✅ Accepted Answer. If it helped, feel free to give it a 🩷 Like!

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