7

I have a bunch of files in the one folder called:

photo1.jpeg
photo2.jpeg
photo3.jpeg

etc

I would like to rename them all to

south_africa_2010_photo1.jpeg
south_africa_2010_photo2.jpeg
south_africa_2010_photo3.jpeg

at the same time.

What is a good way to do this?

Thanks.

5 Answers 5

4

You can try ren command in cmd. Firstly, go to the folder that all of your files are in by cd command in Power Shell which is more flexible and powerful.

Dir | Rename-Item –NewName { $_.name –replace “ “,”south_africa_2010_” }

Disclaimer : It's just an example command and I am not responsible for any outcome.

Else, in easy way, you can try this Bulk Rename Utility . and some other ways are here.

4

From Windows Explorer:

  1. Select all the files in the folder (press Ctrl - A)
  2. Right-click the first file, choose Rename
  3. Type south_africa_2010_photo(1).jpeg
  4. Press Return

Your files will now be named:

south_africa_2010_photo(1).jpeg
south_africa_2010_photo(2).jpeg
...
south_africa_2010_photo(n).jpeg
5
  • Interesting approach but with the parens, the result isn't quite what was requested. Also, if there are gaps in the numbers on some of the files, they get renumbered. Dec 24, 2012 at 3:10
  • @NicoleHamilton Thanks for the comment. What do you mean by "gaps in the numbers"?
    – Lee Taylor
    Dec 24, 2012 at 3:12
  • Suppose you have photo1.jpeg, photo3.jpeg and photo4.jpeg but no photo2.jpeg. photo3.jpeg and photo4.jpeg will get renumbered. Dec 24, 2012 at 3:23
  • @NicoleHamilton - I see. This has never been an issue with me. The date/time of the photos are more important than an arbitrary filename...
    – Lee Taylor
    Dec 24, 2012 at 3:25
  • 1
    +1. This is very less known feature of Windows Explorer.. Mar 24, 2014 at 19:58
2

This kind of thing is a lot easier with a Unix shell on Windows. For example, here's how you might do it either using Cygwin bash or my own Hamilton C shell.

C shell:

foreach i (photo*.jpeg) mv $i south_africa_2010_$i; end

bash:

for i in photo*.jpeg; do mv "$i" "south_africa_2010_$i"; done
2

You could try Massive File Renamer.

This software will allow you to easily rename multiple files and file extensions. It's very fast and simple!

For advanced users and developers, it is possible to use regular expressions.

See it in action: enter image description here

1

Bulk Rename Utility has a cluttered interface and takes a little getting used to. I recommend File Renamer Basic you can even preview the output before changing the file names and undo right away, here are some screenshots.

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