Downloading a folder on Appian as a zip doesn't preserve the hierarchy of that folder

Question

Hi everyone, 
We have a need to clean up documents in our lower environment as it is consuming a lot of disk space. We identified two folders whose contents aren't needed currently. However, I would like to back them up just in case it's needed in the future. However, when I download the folder as a zip and subsequently unzip it, the folder hierarchy is different than how it is on Appian. It might not be a big deal for us but I did want to ask the community if they know of a way to preserve it? Following is the difference in hierarchy

Hierarchy in Appian

FY 2020

Report 1

12. September

9/30/2020 Report 1
9/29/2020 Report 1
9/28/2020 Report 1
Report generated per day

11. August
10. July
09. June
08. May
07. April
06. March
05. February
04. January
03. December
02. November
01. October

Report 2

12. September

9/30/2020 Report 2
9/29/2020 Report 2
9/28/2020 Report 2

11. August
10. July
09. June
08. May
07. April
06. March
05. February
04. January
03. December
02. November
01. October

Hierarchy of the downloaded zip folder

FY 2020

Report 1

12. September

9

30
29
28

11. August
10. July
09. June
08. May
07. April
06. March
05. February
04. January
03. December
02. November
01. October

Report 2

12. September

9

30
29
28

11. August
10. July
09. June
08. May
07. April
06. March
05. February
04. January
03. December
02. November
01. October

mikes0011 · Answer

Can you clarify what the difference is that you're finding to be unacceptable, like in plain speak? I notice the following highlighted difference but i'm pretty unclear so far what I'm supposed to infer from this.

One thing that does occur to me is that Appian folders and documents don't have any limitation against containing the "/" or "\" characters, even though these are strictly disallowed characters in file OR folder names in most operating systems. Thus it's probably doing some conversion (and maybe getting something wrong w.r.t. sub-paths) when you elect to "download as zip". In fact now that I think about it, it seems pretty clear that this is what it's doing - trying to change the "/" in dates into a sub-folder descriptor (and getting a bit clogged-up in the process).

What happens if you try renaming one of those folders to something conventionally filename-compatible (as well as ISO-compliant)? "9/30/2020 Report 1" would perhaps become "2020-09-30 Report 1". This uses the "correct" date format for computer usage and would have no such "folder name limitations" - and I'm curious if that would cause it to export with the folder structure you expect?

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