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Jorge Castro
Asked: 2010-11-01 11:02:08 +0800 CST

How can I rename many files at once?

  • 772

I need to rename a bunch of files in order to fix their sort order, therefore I need to be able to do a sort of "find and replace" so I can replace chunks of the filenames at a time.

What tools should I use? I prefer GUI but a command line tool recommendation would also be fine.

software-recommendation files batch-rename

16 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    There are a few but I recommend gprename Install gprename which is a good compromise between usability and functionality.

    Other tools are: rename, krename Install krename , pyrenamer Install pyrenamer , cuteRenamer, ...

    • 54

  2. I really like qmv from the renameutils package. It enables you to use your favorite (terminal based) text editor to rename files. I prefer to invoke it with -f do which gives you a single column (one row per file) with filenames. Combined with the power of Vim it gives you all the tools you need to do massive filename editing.

    http://www.nongnu.org/renameutils/

    • 10

  3. Métamorphose

    https://github.com/metamorphose

    may be a little difficult to handle, but really powerful!

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  4. If you like the shell and perl regular expressions I'd recommend rename. It's as plain as it's name.

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  5. thunar file manager is a GUI with a bulk rename option

    http://thunar.xfce.org/pwiki/documentation/bulk_renamer

    it's not standard on Gnome but can be installed through the software centre

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  6. If you are familiar with Emacs, I think nothing beats Dired for this task. Even if you don't use Emacs that often you may find Dired a handy tool.

    sudo aptitude install emacs23-nox

    Start Emacs Dired mode for a directory:

    emacs -nw path/to/dir/

    Now enter edit directory mode:

    C-x C-q (that is Ctrl+x followed by Ctrl+q)

    You can now edit the filenames like editing text in every plain text editor. You may even chose to replace the filenames using regular expressions (note that unfortunately Emacs uses a different syntax than PCRE).

    For example, to rename files with counter (starting by 1):
    M-x replace-regexp (that is Alt+x followed by the string "replace-regexp" typed in the minibuffer at the bottom of the screen).
    Replace regexp: DSCN\([0-9]+\).JPG
    Replace with: \,(format "P%04d.jpg" (1 + \#))

    To reuse a counter in the filename:
    M-x replace-regexp
    Replace regexp: DSCN\([0-9]+\).JPG
    Replace with: \,(format "P%04d.jpg" (string-to-number \1))

    When finished, type:

    C-c C-c (that is Ctrl+c followed by Ctrl+c)

    Or alternatively press the following sequence to abort your changes:

    C-c Esc (that is Ctrl+c followed by Esc)

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  7. I tend to use mmv, which is command-line based, and has a somewhat quirky expression syntax but tend to solve most of my problems.

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  8. If you use Nautilus and know how Nautilus Scripts work, you could use nautilus-renamer.

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  9. find -execdir rename

    This renames files and directories with a regular expression affecting only basenames, for example:

    PATH=/usr/bin find . -depth -execdir rename "s/^find/replace/" '{}' \;

    or to affect files only:

    PATH=/usr/bin find . -type f -execdir rename "s/^find/replace/" '{}' \;

    I have explained it in more detail at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16541582/find-multiple-files-and-rename-them-in-linux/54163971#54163971

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  10. On the command line theres also the possibility to use magic of sed and shell:

    ls *.c | sed "s#\(.*\)\.c#mv \0 \1.cpp#" | sh
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