How to search and rename in filenames in Windows 7 using Explorer?

Question

I want to replace all the _ to be a space in a filename. How can I do it quickly since I got lots of _ charaters to replace?

Answer 1

vbScript should do it for you. Create a file called "rename_underscores.vbs" containing the following.

Set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set Folder = objFSO.GetFolder("c:\test\")

For Each File In Folder.Files
    sNewFile = File.Name
    sNewFile = Replace(sNewFile,"_"," ")
    if (sNewFile<>File.Name) then 
        File.Move(File.ParentFolder+"\"+sNewFile)
    end if

Next

Make sure the folder name is correct. (In the example, I've used c:\test) And then double click your file to do the renaming.

Answer 2

Windows-based renaming tool, the most powerful there is, and it's free. http://www3.telus.net/pfrank/

Answer 3

This is within the realms of a dos bat file. Create a bat file (New->Text file, rename extension to .bat) then copy the blue sections below into it.

I'll split it into sections and explain what it's doing.

---

Print the current state of the directory for comparasson later

dir /b

List the files in the directory, then for all the ones that contain an underscore and end in .txt, call ProcessFile on them.

for %%f in (*_*.txt) do call :ProcessFile %%f
goto :finished

The syntax "str=%str:x=y%" replaces instances of x with y. In this case, we're replacing "_" with nothing

:ProcessFile
set str=%1
rename %1 %str:_=%
goto :eof

That's it!

Now it just prints what was changed so we can confirm it's working as expected;

:finished
echo ----
dir /b

Results (Not part of the bat file)

baz_ing.txt
big_rawr.foo
foo_bar.txt
multiple_underscores_test.txt
----
bazing.txt
big_rawr.foo
foobar.txt
multipleunderscorestest.txt

Answer 4

I recommend using a 3rd party tool like Bulk Rename Utility. It's free and it has an installer less than 1 MB.