FileRenamer

The FileRenamer

The renaming of files and folders can be very cumbersome, especially when it is about a large number of files or folders. However, it is not necessary to click on each file individually in order to make the changes and then repeat the same procedure again and again with the next files. Because there is the renamer for file names and folder names!

This tool for Windows, macOS and Linux is specialized in this task. First, you just add all files or folders that are to be renamed to the file list in the program, then you set up your desired changes and finally you click on the button "Apply Changes" to give all files or folders their new names in one go.

Replace, Delete, Insert and Rewrite Text in multiple File and Folder Names

The FileRenamer provides you with numerous options, functions and settings for the renaming, which can be easily activated or deactivated in the program using checkboxes.

This includes, for example, all common functions for editing text. For instance, you can search and replace text in file names, text can be deleted from file names or inserted at any position, text can be appended to the front or the end of the names, a certain number of characters can be truncated from the beginning or the back and file names can be shortened to a specified length.

Additionally, the tool offers options for deleting or replacing specific character groups such as spaces, periods, hyphens, underscores, certain letter types, digits or special characters, and furthermore, with only one click, you can also adjust the writing of the file names. For that, there are various options available, such as capitalizing the first letter of each word in the filenames, or rewriting all letters to lowercase or uppercase letters. Other functions for rewriting filenames include CamelCase separating ("AbcDe" to "Abc De"), replacing (ä to ae) or removing diacritics (ä, à or ã to a), UrlEncode and UrlDecode functions ("ab%20cd" to "ab cd" or vice versa) as well as functions to remove double spaces, hyphens and underscores.

Unicode Support and Regular Expressions

All these as well as all other functions of the FileRenamer are, of course, fully compatible with Unicode. This means that both the names of the files as well as the names of the folders may contain arbitrary Unicode characters (that are allowed in file names) and you can also use all functions of the application with Unicode characters as well. So, you can use the tool not only for editing Latin letters in file names, but also, for example, for Cyrillic, Greek or Chinese characters as well as for all other special characters and symbols permitted in file names.

The function for searching and replacing text as well as the function for deleting text can also be used with regular expressions, which makes it possible to use those functions more flexibly. For example, using regular expression, it is possible to delete certain components or character groups from the file names or to replace or rewrite specific patterns such as number formattings or dates independently of the specific content dynamically.

Placeholders and Resources

In all text input fields of the FileRenamer functions, in addition to simple text, also placeholders can be used. There are placeholders, for example, for the old file name, the file extension, the various folder names within the file path, the current date or time, the date of the file, the number of the file in the file list or the total number of files in the list.

With the help of placeholders, also resources can be inserted at any position into the file name or alternatively be used as a complete new name. As an example, you can use a text as a resource in order to use each line of this text line by line for the file names in your file list via placeholders. This allows you, for example, to quickly and easily write the titles of audio tracks or video episodes in their respective file names.

Within the program you can show a list of all available simple placeholders as well as all placeholders that can be used for resources. Using this list, you can insert the placeholders quickly and directly without having to remember their individual names.

Numbering of Files and Folders

For the automatic consecutive numbering of files and folders, the FileRenamer provides you with some functions and options with which you can number files and folders flexibly and according to specific rules.

On the one hand you can use the placeholders for numbering such as the placeholder for the number of the file in the file list (%num%) or the absolute number of files in the list (%abs%) in all text fields of the program with which you are able to apply a dynamic numbering by placing the number of the file anywhere within the name and combining it with arbitrary other characters. On the other hand, the application offers you options for an automatic numbering of files with the same name.

In the settings regarding the numbering, you can freely define a starting value, the increment per file and your desired number of leading zeros for the numbering. This allows you to freely determine whether the count should start at 0, at 1 or at any other number. Other options make it possible to either reset the numbering with each new folder and thus start counting again from the initial value whenever a file stored in a different folder appears in your list, or to make the numbering consecutive. As another example, it is also possible to halt the numbering increase for files with the same name or the same word stem. This allows, for example, to treat files with the same name but different file extension, that belong together, to be treated like a single file when numbering, so that those related files can be given the same file number when this is required.

Number Adjustment

Also if the numbering of your files should not depend on the position of the respective file in the file list but on an already existing numbering in the file name, the FileRenamer can help: With the function "Number Adjustment", existing numbers in file names can be increased or decreased by any value.

Even if your file or folder names contain several numbers and you only want to change one of these numbers, this is not a problem for the tool: In addition to changing all numbers, you can also specify a position for the change, for example in order to change only the first, the last or the xth number counted from the end or from the beginning of the file name while all other numbers in the file name remain unchanged.

Renaming with the Help of a Mask

In addition to process the old original text of the file and folder names with the replace, delete, insert and rewrite functions of the FileRenamer, you can also specify a mask as new name, with which you can dynamically construct the new name from any placeholders and text components.

An example for this would be the mask "file (%abs0num%-%abs%)", with which you write the number of the file as well as the total number of all files enclosed in brackets into the edited file names. In the mask, we use the two placeholders %abs0num% (number of the file in the file list with a number of leading zeros that fits to the total number of files) and %abs% (total number of files in the file list). If your file list contains 100 files, they would be given the names "file (001-100)" to "file (100-100)" after renaming them with this mask.

Editing of File Name and File Extension

Most of the settings and functions of the FileRenamer can be applied to the name and the extension of the files independently of each other. This allows you to limit the editing to only one of those parts of the name as needed. For example, if you want to replace text only in the file name without having to worry about changing the file extension with your replacement, or if you only want to change the case of the file extension while leaving the name unchanged. Alternatively, the file name can also be edited as a whole.

At what point within the file name the ending should begin can be specified in the settings. This allows also double file extensions such as .ext.partx to be edited independently of the file name.

Preview and Undo Function

How the new names of your files and folders will look like after the renaming, you can see in the column "Preview" of the program's file list, right next to the old name. With each change you make to the settings and options of the FileRenamer, the column updates automatically, so that you can directly see how your configured changes affect each file and folder in the list. In this way, you can actually rename the files and folders not before all of the settings are correct and you are satisfied with the result.

However, if you nevertheless notice only after the renaming that you have given your files or folders an unwanted name, the FileRenamer's undo function will help you: Via the menu "File > Undo last Change" or alternatively via the key combination CTRL+Z you are able to undo your recent renamings step by step.

Modification of File Attributes and File Dates

In addition to the functions for changing the names of files and folders, the FileRenamer also provides you with functions for changing the attributes of files and folders.

For example, it is possible to modify the file attributes "hidden", "read-only" and "hidden file extension" or to change the creation date, the date of the last access or the date of the last modification of a file or folder to an arbitrary new time respectively date. In addition to freely enter any date of your desire, you can also select one of the quick selection options for the time, which are available for the current time as well as for the other file dates. This allows you, for example, to dynamically set the last modification date of several files to the creation date of the respective file simultaneously, without having to look at each file individually, even if all files have a different creation date.

Which of these options for changing attributes are available in your program version depends on the file system and operating system used.

No Change of the File Content

It is important that the FileRenamer only renames files and folders or changes their attributes, but does not change the content of the files. Even overwriting an existing file is prevented by changing the name of a file only if no file with the same name already exists in the same folder.

If you nevertheless want to give multiple files the same name, the tool offers you options to automatically number files with the same name in case that your settings would result in files or folders with an identical name.

Download

Download the FileRenamer for free in the download area for Windows, Linux or macOS and learn in the first steps how you can benefit from this application. Additionally, we are collecting frequently asked question about the FileRenamer on the FAQ page for you. The FileRenamer is portable, you can use the program directly without an installation.

Screenshots

You want to first see what the FileRenamer looks like? On the screenshot page we have compiled some screenshots of the FileRenamer for you.