Rename multiple files at once in Windows XP

by Grant Robertson Feb 24th 2007

This is a really neat trick I never knew existed. Have a series of files with mis-matching names and want to put them in better order? It's mega-easy, just follow these simple directions.

Highlight the files you want to rename. (Use Ctrl or Shift to highlight multiple files at once)
Right-Click the first file in the series, click Rename.
Only the file you've right clicked will be highlighted. That's OK. Change the file name, the extension will be kept.
Hit the enter key to commit your change. Your files will be named "file (1).jpg", "file (2).jpg", etc..

Note: If you've turned on "View extensions for known file types", leave the file extension intact when you rename.

Tags: rename files, rename multiple files, RenameFiles, RenameMultipleFiles, tips

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

yhancik said 1:19PM on 2-24-2007

Ant Renamer (http://www.antp.be/software/renamer) is a quite handy tool to mass-rename files

digistrom.blogspot.com said 1:53PM on 2-24-2007

http://digistrom.blogspot.com/2007/02/batch-rename-files-sophisticated-way_08.html

... a lot of people (including myself) use this hack from time to time but it doesn't provide enough control and more importantly it is risky! If you mistakenly select files that don't need to be renamed you will have no way of getting the original file names back! Yes, Windows allows us to undo a renaming action by pressing Ctrl-Z but it will only undo the renaming for a handful of files, just ten. The rest of the file names will be lost forever...

jmalenko said 2:39PM on 2-24-2007

c=1 zmv '*.jpg' 'file-$((c++)).jpg'

or without zsh
c=1; for i in *.jpg; do mv $i file-$((c++)); done

or even better, for numbering like (0001,0002,0003)
zmv ’(*).jpg’ ’file-${(l:4::0:)1}.jpg’

duke said 2:46PM on 2-24-2007

for next post, we are going to discuss how to do Right Clicks with your mouse.

samuel said 3:22PM on 2-24-2007

Man you didn't know this?! Check out IT-Falke Re-namer, it been around for ages and does a good job: http://it-falke.com/software/renamefiles/us_download.php

Vampaz said 1:08PM on 2-25-2007

LOL, you have started using windows today.

hazard said 9:07PM on 2-25-2007

sorry but this "feature" is more annoying than useful..

Ben said 7:19AM on 2-26-2007

It was just as interesting when downloadsquad blogged about it a few months ago .... don't you read your own blog? :S

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/05/09/batch-file-renaming-in-windows/

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