# If you'd like to omit non-matching lines from the result; add ';d' to the end of the expression.
sed -E 's/"[^"\\]*(?:\\.[^"\\]*)*"(*SKIP)(*F)|\h+/$0\n/gm;t' <<< "arg1=ABC arg2=123 arg3= arg4=\"consecutive spaces and \\"escaped quote\\" shall be preserved within quotes\""
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for SED, please visit: https://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/html_node/The-_0022s_0022-Command.html