The rename command will be pretty handy here. Naturally, you would want to remove the spaces and replace them with an underscore (_). This is why no experienced user ever names a file with spaces in it. ![]() ![]() It’s a nightmare to handle spaces in filenames in Linux. Imagine if you have white spaces in several filenames. Scenario 1: Replace a Character With Another in all the Filenames in Linux Let me show two practical scenarios where this command will save you a lot of time. Now you must be wondering how to rename files with the rename command. If you are a sudo user in Ubuntu or Debian, you can use this command to install rename: sudo apt install rename -s : Do not rename the symlink but its targetĭo note that rename command is not a standard utility that are pre-installed on the Linux distributions like mv or cp command.Show the files that would be renamed but don’t rename the files. This 'rename command' has the following options: This is the syntax rename command follows: rename perlexpr The rename command only works on the filename, not the file itself. There is a command line utility called rename that allows you to rename all the files that match a certain pattern in Perl regex form. You can use the find exec command option with the mv command to automate this process.īut let me tell you an even simpler way of renaming files based on regex pattern. Using mv command one by one would take plenty of time and should surely be avoided. That’s the standard way after all.īut what about the situation where you have to rename several files. The same mv command is used for renaming directories as well. You simply use it in the format: mv old_file_name new_file_name Copy all the values from column C to the clipboard and paste them inside the DOS window or better still, put them inside a new text file and give it a name like rename.bat.Įxecute and all files that match the criteria are renamed instantly.I believe you already know how to rename files in Linux with mv command. In Column C, type the following Excel formula and your command is ready to be executed.Ĭopy paste the same formula across all cells in column C for which you have corresponding values in Column A or B. Step 5: Your source filenames are now in column A while the Destination files are in column B - we will now convert this into a DOS rename command. *For more complex criteria, you may want to put the file extensions in a separate column by splitting the file name using period (.) as the delimiter. Step 4: In the blank adjacent column, add a corresponding Excel function - for instance, use SUBSTITUTE to change specific text in the filenames, use CONCATENATE() with DATE() if you want to add date to the filename, etc. ![]() Fire your copy of Microsoft Excel or Google Docs Spreadsheets and paste those file names into the first spreadsheet column. Copy that file list to the clipboard by selecting Mark from the contextual menu. Step 2: Type “dir /b” to see a skeleton list of all files in the current directory. Step 1: Type cmd and switch (using “cd” command) to the directory that contains the files you want to rename in bulk. To rename files in bulk more efficiently, you can either learn some complex shell scripting language (SED, AWK, Perl) or switch to something more simple - a spreadsheet. ![]() That’s a fairly quick solution but not very flexible because you don’t get to specify any choices or criteria.įor instance, how do you append the current date to the filename ? Or you want to replace only certain words in the file names (like a spelling error)? Or you want files to follow a different renaming system like file-A.jpg instead of the default file(1).jpg. Windows will append a unique sequence number to each of the file names. Select all the files, press F2 and type some descriptive text. Renaming multiples files on your Windows computer is easy.
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