This doesn't work: using namespace boost::filesystem; copy_file(tmpFileName,fname,copy_option::overwrite_if_exists); error: no matching function for call to 'copy_file(std::string&, std::string&, boost::filesystem::copy_option::enum_type)' /fs/tools/L1/boost_1_43_0/boost/filesystem/operations.hpp:742: note: candidates are: void boost::filesystem::copy_file(const boost::filesystem::path&, const boost::filesystem::path&) /fs/tools/L1/boost_1_43_0/boost/filesystem/operations.hpp:744: note: void boost::filesystem::copy_file(const boost::filesystem::wpath&, const boost::filesystem::wpath&) This does: detail::copy_file_api(tmpFileName,fname, copy_option::overwrite_if_exists); Platform is Linux+gcc. It looks like these definitions are the only ones exposed: inline void copy_file( const path & from_path, const path & to_path ) { return copy_file<path>( from_path, to_path ); } inline void copy_file( const wpath & from_path, const wpath & to_path ) { return copy_file<wpath>( from_path, to_path ); } This doesn't fly either though: copy_filestd::string(tmpFileName,fname,copy_option::overwrite_if_exist s); The version I'm after is there: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_43_0/libs/filesystem/doc/reference.html It would be nice to have a move/rename with this functionality. I'm going to stick with std::rename().