Renaming multiple files at once is a trick which many of you don’t have under your sleeve. Many of you would only know the conventional method of renaming every file one by one and wasting your time. Here are some nice tricks which we wanted to share with our readers.
Renaming Multiple Files Using Windows:
This one is easy, and that’s the method we were talking about. Follow the below mentioned steps and you will get the job done.
1) Select multiple files (you can use Ctrl or Shift key to highlight multiple files at once. This can be done by clicking one file and holding the shift key and click the file upto which you want to select the files. This method will select all the files between the first and last clicked files. If you want to choose only selected files, click the file, press Ctrl and click on other files and keeping hold of Ctrl key at the same time.)
2) Right click on any one of the highlighted file and then click Rename.
3) Don’t worry if you see only one file being highlighted now. Just rename it as like.
4) Press enter and it is done. The other files will be named as same as you renamed them but they will be named like Picture (1).txt Picture (2).txt and so on!
Note: Above technique can also work by selecting files and then pressing F2 and then typing the name of file you want.
Renaming Multiple Files Using Microsfot Excel or Google Docs:
Now if you want to add date to the file name or correct spelling mistake in it or want to append sequence of your own liking, this is the method you would surely like to give a try. Again follow the below mentioned steps:
1) Bring on the command line by typing cmd in the Run window. (Do this by clicking Start button and then clicking Run)
2) Now go to the directory where your files are placed that you want to rename in bulk.
3) Type “dir /b” and you will see skeleton of all the files present in that directory. You need to copy this skeleton on the clipboard, which can be done by right clicking and then clikcing Mark. Then you select that file skeleton and hit Enter and the selected things will be copied. Then close the cmd window.
4) Now open Microsoft Excel or Google Docs Spreadsheets and paste those file skeletons into the first column of spreadsheet.
5) Now select seconde columna nd add the formula which may be
=SUBSITUTE(A1,old text, new text)
and hit enter. In place of oldtext write the name of file and in newtext write the new name of file which you want to choose. Do this process for other elements of second column like B2,B3 and so on. You can use CONCATENATE() with DATE() if you want to add date to the filename.
6) In third column, type this formula
=CONCATENATE(”ren “,A1, ” “, B1)
Do the same for C2,C3 and so on.
7) Copy paste the elements into command window and you are done. You can also paste into text file and then rename it to like rename.bat and then execute it in command window. The batch file should exist in the directory where your files were earlier located.
Renaming Multiple Files Using Software:
You can also use a software to rename multiple files at once. It gives user more control and variety of options to work with. We recommend you to use Bulk Rename Utility as it is light and is easy to use as well. It can be downloaded by clicking here. It gives user the following options to rename files:
i) Select Files and/or Folders
ii) Change the file name
iii) Convert the extension to upper case,lower case, title case
iv) Change the extension to upper case,lower case, title case
v) Add a fixed prefix or fixed suffix
vi) Remove a list of characters or digits ir symbols
vii) Append the folder name to the file
viii) Store your frequently-used criteria as favourites
ix) Copy or move the renamed files to a new location
x) Rename photos using EXIF meta data
xi) Rename MP3 files using ID3 tags
xii) Change files’ creation and modification time stamps
Most of all, It is FREE!!!
Picture courtesy of Techtoggle
Renaming Multiple Files using C:
