This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Batch renaming is a form of batch processing used to rename multiple computer files and folders in an automated fashion, in order to save time and reduce the amount of work involved. Some sort of software is required to do this. Such software can be more or less advanced, but most have the same basic functions.
Batch renaming can also be referred to as 'mass file renaming', rename 'en masse' and 'bulk renaming'.
Most batch renamers share a basic set of functions to manipulate the filenames:
Some batch rename software can do more than just renaming filenames. Features include changing the dates of files and changing the file attributes (such as the write protected attribute).
There are many situations where batch renaming software can be useful. Here is a list of some common uses:
There are a few problems to take in consideration when renaming a file list.
(→ means: renamed to)
file01 → file02 (file02 already exists in file-system)
file01 → file03
file02 → file03 (file03 is already used)
file01 → file02 (file02 already exists in file-system)
file02 → file03 (file03 already exists in file-system)
file03 → file01 (file01 already exists in file-system)
Two-pass renaming uses a temporary filename (that doesn't exist in file-system) as shown below.
(→ means: renamed to)
file01 → file01_AAAAA
file02 → file02_AAAAB
file03 → file03_AAAAC
file01_AAAAA → file02
file02_AAAAB → file03
file03_AAAAC → file01
It solves the cycle renaming problem.
If this approach is to be used care should be taken not to exceed any filename length limits during the rename, and also that the temporary names do not clash with any existing files.
This is a list of notable batch renaming programs in the form of a comparison table.
Name | License | Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD/FreeBSD | Unix-like |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Advanced Renamer | Free for non-commercial use | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Ant Renamer [1] | Free GNU General Public License v3 | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Aperture | Commercial | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Automator | Free with OS X | No | Yes | No | No | No |
File Rename Utility [2] | Free | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Bulk Rename Utility [3] | Free for non-commercial use | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Bulky [4] | AGPL3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Chrono Namer [5] | Free | Yes | No | No | No | No |
CRAX Commander [6] | Commercial | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Easy File Renamer [7] | Commercial | Yes | No | No | No | No |
ExifRenamer [8] | Free | No | Yes | No | No | No |
GNOME Commander | Free, GNU General Public License | Yes (via Cygwin) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
GPRename | Free, GNU General Public License v3 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
KRename | Free, GNU General Public License v2 | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Métamorphose | Free, GNU General Public License v3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
AlgoLogic Batch File Renamer | Commercial | Yes | No | No | No | No |
ImBatch [9] | Free for non-commercial use | Yes | No | No | No | No |
ReNamer Lite(den4b) | Free for non-commercial use | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Thunar (bulk renamer) [10] | Free, GNU General Public License v2+ | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Unreal Commander | Free | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Vi move (vimv) [11] | Free, GNU General Public License v3+ | Yes (via Cygwin) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Vifm [12] | Free, GNU General Public License v2+ | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Namagic [13] | Commercial | No | Yes | No | No | No |
rename [14] | Free, GPL | No | Yes | Yes | — | Yes |
rnm [15] | Free, GPL-3+ | No | Yes | Yes | — | Yes |
A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and often a package management system. They are often obtained from the website of each distribution, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to servers and powerful supercomputers.
A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner.
An 8.3 filename is one that obeys the filename convention used by old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5. It is also used in modern Microsoft operating systems as an alternate filename to the long filename, to provide compatibility with legacy programs. The filename convention is limited by the FAT file system. Similar 8.3 file naming schemes have also existed on earlier CP/M, TRS-80, Atari, and some Data General and Digital Equipment Corporation minicomputer operating systems.
Linux has several filesystem drivers for the File Allocation Table (FAT) filesystem format. These are commonly known by the names used in the mount
command to invoke particular drivers in the kernel: msdos, vfat, and umsdos.
A filename or file name is a name used to uniquely identify a computer file in a file system. Different file systems impose different restrictions on filename lengths.
The archiver, also known simply as ar, is a Unix utility that maintains groups of files as a single archive file. Today, ar
is generally used only to create and update static library files that the link editor or linker uses and for generating .deb packages for the Debian family; it can be used to create archives for any purpose, but has been largely replaced by tar
for purposes other than static libraries. An implementation of ar
is included as one of the GNU Binutils.
In computing, gettext is an internationalization and localization system commonly used for writing multilingual programs on Unix-like computer operating systems. One of the main benefits of gettext is that it separates programming from translating. The most commonly used implementation of gettext is GNU gettext, released by the GNU Project in 1995. The runtime library is libintl. gettext provides an option to use different strings for any number of plural forms of nouns, but this feature has no support for grammatical gender. The main filename extensions used by this system are .POT, .PO and .MO.
HFS Plus or HFS+ is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8.1. HFS+ continued as the primary Mac OS X file system until it was itself replaced with the Apple File System (APFS), released with macOS High Sierra in 2017. HFS+ is also one of the formats supported by the iPod digital music player.
A versioning file system is any computer file system which allows a computer file to exist in several versions at the same time. Thus it is a form of revision control. Most common versioning file systems keep a number of old copies of the file. Some limit the number of changes per minute or per hour to avoid storing large numbers of trivial changes. Others instead take periodic snapshots whose contents can be accessed using methods similar as those for normal file access.
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers collaboratively developing software.
SonicStage is a discontinued software product from Sony that is used for managing portable devices when they are plugged into a computer running Microsoft Windows. It comprises a music player and library manager, similar to iTunes, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer. It is used to manage the library of ATRAC and MP3 recordings on a PC.
PhotoRec is a free and open-source utility software for data recovery with text-based user interface using data carving techniques, designed to recover lost files from various digital camera memory, hard disk and CD-ROM. It can recover the files with more than 480 file extensions . It is also possible to add custom file signature to detect less known files.
The following tables describe attributes of notable version control and software configuration management (SCM) software systems that can be used to compare and contrast the various systems.
A desktop environment is a collection of software designed to give functionality and a certain look and feel to an operating system.
Xarchiver is a front-end to various command line archiving tools for Linux and BSD operating systems, designed to be independent of the desktop environment. It is the default archiving application of Xfce and LXDE. Deepin's archive manager is based on Xarchiver.
A batch file is a script file in DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. It consists of a series of commands to be executed by the command-line interpreter, stored in a plain text file. A batch file may contain any command the interpreter accepts interactively and use constructs that enable conditional branching and looping within the batch file, such as IF
, FOR
, and GOTO
labels. The term "batch" is from batch processing, meaning "non-interactive execution", though a batch file might not process a batch of multiple data.
KRename is a KDE software that can be used for renaming multiple files and directories at one time. Many Linux distributions that use Plasma as the default desktop environment include the KRename software.
Quod Libet is a cross-platform free and open-source audio player, tag editor and library organizer. The main design philosophy is that the user knows how they want to organize their music best; the software is therefore built to be fully customizable and extensible using regular expressions and boolean logic. Quod Libet is based on GTK and written in Python, and uses the Mutagen tagging library.
Leafpad is a free and open-source graphical text editor for Linux, Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), and Maemo that is similar to the Microsoft Windows program Notepad. Created with the focus of being a lightweight text editor with minimal dependencies, it is designed to be simple-to-use and easy-to-compile.
Puddletag is a graphical audio file metadata editor ("tagger") for Unix-like operating systems.