diff --git a/miscellaneous/clean_file_names.sh b/miscellaneous/clean_file_names.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..73b1758
--- /dev/null
+++ b/miscellaneous/clean_file_names.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# this script cleans up the names of files and directories in the current directory.
+# it ensures that names only contain letters, numbers, or the characters "-", "_", and ".".
+# spaces and accented characters are replaced with allowed characters.
+
+# usage:
+# 1. save this script to a file, e.g., rename_files.sh
+# 2. make the script executable: chmod +x rename_files.sh
+# 3. run the script in the directory you want to clean up: ./rename_files.sh
+
+# function to "clean" the names of files and directories
+# the function converts uppercase to lowercase, replaces accented characters with their base equivalents,
+# and replaces any character that is not a letter, digit, dot, underscore, or hyphen with an underscore.
+clean_name() {
+    echo "$1" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | sed -e 's/[àáâãäå]/a/g' \
+                                      -e 's/[èéêë]/e/g' \
+                                      -e 's/[ìíîï]/i/g' \
+                                      -e 's/[òóôõö]/o/g' \
+                                      -e 's/[ùúûü]/u/g' \
+                                      -e 's/[ç]/c/g' \
+                                      -e 's/[^a-zA-Z0-9._-]/_/g'
+}
+
+# loop through all files and directories in the current directory
+for item in *; do
+    # check if the item exists (avoid errors if nothing is found)
+    if [ -e "$item" ]; then
+        # get the new "cleaned" name
+        new_name=$(clean_name "$item")
+        # if the new name is different from the old one, rename the item
+        if [ "$item" != "$new_name" ]; then
+            mv "$item" "$new_name"
+            echo "renamed: '$item' -> '$new_name'"
+        fi
+    fi
+done
+
+# display a message indicating that all files and directories have been processed
+echo "all files and directories have been processed."