If you have ever encountered a situation where you need to rename all files inside multiple subfolders, you may have probably wondered if there are better ways to quickly accomplish it without much hassle.
Manually renaming all the files could take a long time. It is not even an option if you’ve got hundreds of thousands of files that have to be renamed.
Manually renaming files can be difficult. Try Easy File Renamer to bulk rename files and folders on PC, Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive.
Add New Text to File Names
Using the command given below, we’ll add a new text ‘birthday-party’ to all the JPG photos in a folder.
- Type CMD in the Search Box on the taskbar.
- Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.
- Type the following command to change the active directory to the folder containing your files.
Syntax:
ren *.<Extension> ???-<New Text>
Example:
ren *.jpg ???-birthday-party
Replace Text in File Names with Specific Extensions
Similarly, you can change specific text from the file names. You may apply this rule to specific file extensions only, instead of all files.
Open Command Prompt and change the active directory to your desired one.
Use the following command:
Syntax:
ren <Text to replace>*.<Extension> <New text>*.<Extension>
Example:
ren birthday_2021*.png bday_21*.png
Replace Text in All File Names
To change the text in all files, instead of specific ones, use the following command:
Syntax:
ren <Text to replace>*.* <New text>*.*
Example:
ren birthday_2021*.* bday_21*.*
Using a Specialized Software (Recommended)
A specialized software Easy File Renamer gives you complete control over file renaming. Using EFR, you can recursively rename files from all sub-folders at once without any repetitions. Using a specialized software tool is the safest option. It’s fast, easy and secure.
Renaming rules available:
- New Name: Use this rule to specify a complete new name for your files.
- Remove Text: Use this option to remove specific characters from your file names. Easy File Renamer gives you the flexibility to remove all instances of the text found, or only first and last instances.
- Replace Text: Use this option to find specific characters in your file names and replace them with another. Like the Remove Text rule, you can either replace all instances of the text found, or only first or last instances.
- Trim Text: Trim text allows you to remove the first few or last few characters from your file names. Just enter the number of characters you want to remove and their location (from the beginning or end).
- Prefix: You may insert text at the beginning of your file names using the Prefix option. You can insert a prefix at the beginning of your file names or file extensions, depending on your requirement.
- Suffix: Select this option to add text at the end of the file name or at the end of the file extension, depending on where you need it.
- Numbering: The numbering rule is commonly used to make it easy to organize our files. You may add numbering to your files if they have common text. You may either add numbering to the beginning or end of the file name.
- Insert At: Use this option to insert specific characters into your file names at your desired position. For example, you may insert a new text ‘book’ after the 5th character in each file name.
- Upper Case: Use this option to turn the text case to uppercase.
- Lower Case: Use this option to turn the text case to lowercase.
- Title Case: Use this option to capitalize the first character in each word in your file names.
- Swap Case: Swap case lets you swap the position of words in your filenames. For example, swap case will change the original filename “pet_food.jpg” to “food_pet.jpg”. You will need to specify a separator character such as an underscore or a dot.
Steps
- Download Easy File Renamer on your PC and install it.
- Open up the software and click the System Renamer tab.
- Select the Files tab to rename files. If you need to rename folders, select the Folders tab.
- Click on Add Files.
- Navigate to the sub-folder containing your files and add them all. To select multiple files, use the Ctrl + A keyboard shortcut, and then click on Open.
- Repeat over the same process for other sub-folders containing files you want to rename.
- Now that you’ve added all the files, use the drop-down box on the left side of your screen to select a renaming rule of your choice.
- Click on Add Rule to add it.
- Finally, click on Rename to start renaming your files recursively.
