Batch rename files and photos using ReNamer

Posted on June 18, 2008 at 5:25 am

Need to batch rename thousands of digital photos? File names have come a long way since the eight character days of old. Some may recall a time when a computer user was limited to eight letters, or numbers, when creating or editing a file. Thankfully, newer Windows systems have eliminated this ceiling.

That said, there are times when someone desiring to rename files runs into a different problem. They may have 500 or so digital pictures, which they need to do a file name change on in order to distinguish between them. Obviously, they can rename the files one at a time by using the mouse and keyboard. Of course, nothing says “beyond enjoyable” like whipping out the Windows command line, and trying to batch a naming sequence for a group of files.

There are many software tools out on the Internet that can assist with this matter. Most of them are very proficient at renaming files, and some have a steeper learning curves compared with their competitors. Your best bet, realistically, is to download a few, play around with them, and find one to suit your needs. With that in mind, here is one piece of freeware that may fit the bill.

ReNamer is a tool that can rename files, obviously. But how it renames files, and the provided options, will grab your attention. To start playing around with ReNamer, after it is installed, drag and drop some pictures into the labeled area of the program. Alternatively, you may click on Add Files, or Add Folders, and browse through folders to import pictures.

After you get your pictures ready, click on the “Click here to add a rule” section. This is where ReNamer gets interesting. Because of the rules options presented to the user, one can cover practically any method and style of file name alterations; or at least any common method.

In the above screen shot, we can tell that there is no lack of rule variety. Each of these rules can be applied sequentially, and we have the ability to rearrange the order of operation as needed. In this instance, we are going to add the word TEST, as a suffix to each file name.

After clicking on Add Rule, ReNamer brings us back to the main window, where we can see a preview of the changes.

Under the New Name column is a list of what our file names will look like if we clicked on the green button Rename. Make note of the Up and Down buttons, we will be using these in a moment. Back to the matter at hand, the names look good, but what if we wanted to take out the underscores for all of the file names?

You can click on Add to get back to the rules section. This time, click on Strip, on the left-hand side. In the right-hand panel, click on Symbols. This will tell ReNamer to remove any underscores, dollar symbols, ampersand characters, and the like, from each of the file names. You can also use the User Defined section, and enter in any symbols or other characters you want taken out.

After clicking on Add Rule once again, the main screen reflects the additional rule.

This screen shot also reflects one mouse click on Down to change the order of the rules. I also unchecked the previous Insert statement, to remove the added word TEST on each of the file names. Any rules in the main screen can be checked and unchecked as desired to alter the names on the fly.

There are many more rules and configurations to play around with. ReNamer, like most file naming programs, is not limited to digital pictures. Any file name that requires alterations can be manipulated with this software.

This is a guest post by Charles Brader, a tech enthusiast.

Technorati Tags: File Renaming,File Names,Change File Name,Batch File Naming

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2 Responses to “Batch rename files and photos using ReNamer”

How to rename multiple files at once in Windows Says:

[...] I had written a post on how to batch rename many files using a free piece of software called ReNamer, which works really well if you have a ton of digital [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:39 am
Add watermark to your images/photos online for free Says:

[...] a large number of photos, there are some other batch operations you can perform on them, such as batch renaming photos, batch resize photos, or batch changing file extensions. Enjoyed this post? Subscribe to Online [...]
September 18th, 2008 at 5:23 am