diff --git a/include/QF/sys.h b/include/QF/sys.h
index 631489d79..3b6d5aed3 100644
--- a/include/QF/sys.h
+++ b/include/QF/sys.h
@@ -38,6 +38,8 @@
 #include <stdint.h>
 #include <stdarg.h>
 
+struct dstring_s;
+
 extern	struct cvar_s	*sys_nostdout;
 extern	struct cvar_s	*sys_extrasleep;
 extern	struct cvar_s	*sys_dead_sleep;
@@ -166,6 +168,37 @@ int Sys_CreatePath (const char *path);
 */
 char *Sys_ExpandSquiggle (const char *path);
 
+/** Open a newly created file with a guaranteed unique name.
+
+	Uniqueness is guaranteed by adding a numeric sequence between the \a
+	prefix and \a suffix, with a minium of \a mindigits numeric characters
+	(with any required leading 0s to expand the number to \a mindigits).
+
+	The created file has read and write permissions as modified by the OS,
+	and the handle can be bothe written and read.
+
+	\param name     dstring into which the name will be generated. Any
+					existing contents will be lost. If an error occurs,
+					\a name will be set to the error string.
+	\param prefix	This includes the path to the file and any file name
+					prefix. The numeric sequence will be appended directly
+					to the prefix with no directory separator.
+	\param suffix	Optional tail to be appended after the numeric sequence,
+					usually the file extension. A dot is not added
+					automatically, it is up to the caller to supply one. NULL
+					and an empty string are equivalent.
+	\param mindigits	The minimum number of digits to include in the
+					generated file name. The sequence number will be padded
+					with 0s in order to meet this menimum. Overflow will
+					simply produce longer numeric sequence sub-strings.
+	\return			File handle to the newly created file, or a negative
+					value if an error occured (the negative error code).
+					Suitable for use with read, write, fdopen, Qdopen, etc.
+	\note	It is the caller's responsibility to close the file.
+*/
+int Sys_UniqueFile (struct dstring_s *name, const char *prefix,
+					const char *suffix, int mindigits);
+
 ///@}
 
 #endif//__QF_sys_h
diff --git a/libs/util/sys.c b/libs/util/sys.c
index 8aefe89f5..daa9adb55 100644
--- a/libs/util/sys.c
+++ b/libs/util/sys.c
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@
 # include <pwd.h>
 #endif
 
+#include <inttypes.h>
 #include <signal.h>
 #include <setjmp.h>
 #include <errno.h>
@@ -1155,3 +1156,29 @@ Sys_ExpandSquiggle (const char *path)
 		home = ".";
 	return nva ("%s%s", home, path + 1);	// skip leading ~
 }
+
+VISIBLE int
+Sys_UniqueFile (dstring_t *name, const char *prefix, const char *suffix,
+				int mindigits)
+{
+	const int   flags = O_CREAT | O_EXCL | O_RDWR;
+	const int   mode = 0644;
+	int64_t     seq = 0;	// it should take a while to run out
+
+	if (!suffix) {
+		suffix = "";
+	}
+	while (1) {
+		dsprintf (name, "%s%0*"PRIi64"%s", prefix, mindigits, seq, suffix);
+		int         fd = open (name->str, flags, mode);
+		if (fd >= 0) {
+			return fd;
+		}
+		int         err = errno;
+		if (err != EEXIST) {
+			dsprintf (name, "%s", strerror (err));
+			return -err;
+		}
+		seq++;
+	}
+}