Remove extra characters from multiple files

Question

I have a directory (Linux user) with a number of files which contain an added [!] to the end of each file name so that each file reads out as:

• foo something [!].zip
• bar something [!].zip
• helloworld [!].zip
• etc.

What is the quickest way to batch rename these to remove the ending [!] character combination from these file names?

Answer 1

You can use the rename tool like this

rename 's/\ \[\!\]//' *.zip

I recommend that you first add the -n switch, which causes rename to just show what it will do, but not rename any files.

rename -n 's/\ \[\!\]//' *.zip

Note that this will only remove the first occurence of [!] in the filename, only if it is preceded by a space, and regardless of whether it is at the end of the filename or not.

Answer 2

Easiest way might be to use the Krusader file manager and the Multi Rename tool.

This will allow you to rename multiple files, even recursing down the directory structure.