I'm trying to copy a file using scp in bash with a colon ( : ) character in the source filename. The obfuscated version of my command I'm using is: scp file\:\ name.mp4 user@host:"/path/to/dest" I get this error: ssh: Could not resolve hostname Portal 2: Name or service not known I know I could just rename the file and remove the : , but I'd like to know if it's possible to escape the colon. Not quite a bash escaping problem, it's scp treating x: as a [user@]host prefix, try: scp ./file:\ name.mp4 user@host:"/path/to/dest" Using relative (e.g. ./ ) or fully qualified paths ( /path/to/source )