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Currently I'm using cmdlets like:

dir | rename-item -NewName {$_.name -replace "-","_"}

But now I need to add a prefix to the filename for all files in the directory.
I can't predict how long each filename is (it varies), so I can't just use a bunch of . wildcards.

I need it to append a fixed phrase to the beginning of each filename, regardless what that filename is.

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  • 1
    See solution here stackoverflow.com/a/20874916/5518385
    – Yisroel Tech
    May 7, 2017 at 22:53
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    What is it now? A prefix or a suffix? For a prefix you already got a name so (literally) just add to your prefix or (for a suffix) just add the suffix to it.
    – Seth
    May 8, 2017 at 12:09

4 Answers 4

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21

An alternative approach to a regular expression would be to use simple string operations to create the new file name.

$items=Get-ChildItem;
$items | Rename-Item -NewName { "Prefix_" + $_.Name };
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    I'm trying this, but it seems to go mad and keep trying to prefix filenames over and over until it crashes from the filename being too long - e.g. running the command above results in filenames like Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_Prefix_...
    – Tom Carpenter
    Sep 2, 2017 at 14:37
  • Split the command. $items = Get-ChildItem; And replace the Get-ChildItem in the above case with $items.
    – Seth
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:21
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    In the end based on this, I just added -Exclude Prefix_* to the Get-ChildItem command.
    – Tom Carpenter
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:23
10

You are quite near.

  • -replace uses RegEX and in a Regular Expression you anchor at the beginning with a ^
  • for a suffix you can similarly replace the anchor at line end with $
  • to avoid any possible re-iteration of the renamed file enclose the first element of the pipeline in parentheses.
(Get-ChildItem -File) | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace "^","Prefix_"}
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    I like this answer because it doesn't cause an infinite loop and I don't need to write the prefix twice - like what happens in other solutions with the -Exclude Prefix_* to avoid the loop.
    – TCB13
    Jul 16, 2018 at 7:34
1

To remove prefix of all in folder:

Get-ChildItem 'Folderpath\KB*' | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace 'KB*','' }

To Add a prefix to all in folder:

foreach($item in 'Folderpath')
{
Get-ChildItem 'C:\Users\ilike\OneDrive\Desktop\All in one script\Single Patch here' | Rename-Item -NewName { "KB" + $_.Name }
}

Took a while, hope this can help others in need

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0

get-childitem *.FileExtension_ | foreach { rename-item $_ $.Name.Replace($.Name,"Prefix_" + $_.Name) }

Replace FileExtension_ with the extension corresponding to the filetype you want to add prefix to. Or just remove .FileExtension_ along with the "." to add prefix to all files in working directory. Replace Prefix_ with the desired prefix.

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