How do I rename multiple files at a shell prompt under Linux or UNIX operating systems?
Renaming multiple files at a shell prompt is always considered as a black art by many UNIX gurus.
To be frank if you understand regex then it is not a black art anymore. A regular expression is a string that describes or matches a set of strings, according to certain syntax rules (see regex @ wikipedia for more information). Linux (and *BSD) comes with handy utility called rename. As a name suggest 'rename' renames the filenames supplied according to the rule specified (syntax):
rename "regex-rule" files
Rename command syntax
rename oldname newname *.files
For example rename all *.bak file as *.txt, enter:
$ rename .bak .txt *.bak
Examples: Linux Rename Multiple Files
Convert all mp3 filenames to more readable and usable format. Most of the time MP3 got multiple blank spaces, which may confuse many command line based Linux utilities and mp3 players
$ ls
Output:
06 - Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.mp3 DDR - Kung- Fu Fighting (bus stop).mp3 AXEL CRAZYFROG.mp3
Remove all blank space with rename command:
$ rename "s/ *//g" *.mp3
$ ls
Output:
06-Gorillaz-FeelGoodInc.mp3 DDR-Kung-FuFighting(busstop).mp3 AXEL-CRAZYFROG.mp3
Linux Shell script to rename files
Before using the rename command I was using the following shell script to rename my mp3s:
#!/bin/bash # To remove blank space if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then echo "Syntax: $(basename $0) file-name [command]" exit 1 fi FILES=$1 CMD=$2 for i in $FILES do # remove all blanks and store them OUT OUT=$(echo $i | sed 's/ *//g') if [ "$CMD" == "" ]; then #just show file echo $OUT else #else execute command such as mv or cp or rm [ "$i" != "$OUT" ] && $($CMD "$i" "$OUT") fi done
To remove .jpg file extension, you write command as follows:
$ rename 's/\.jpg$//' *.jpg
To convert all uppercase filenames to lowercase:
$ rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *
Read the man page of rename command for more information:
man rename
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{ 75 comments… read them below or add one }
Very Good job dude with that examples.. was helpfull thanks
The ‘rename’ command seems not working for me.. :(
“TRY THIS ONE”
vi change.sh
i
cd $1
j=1
for i in `ls $2`
do
mv $i file{$j}.txt
j=`expr $j + 1`
done
press esc
:wq
chmod +x change.sh
./change.sh ~/file *.txt
WOW….
OH MY GOD ,IT REALLY WORKS
I CAN’T BELIVE THIS….
Perfect!!
You can also use the standard input to find in a folder structure like:
find . -name \*exp_to_find_in_folders\* | rename "s/exp_to_find_for_replacement/exp_to_replace/"leopinzon’s command didn’t worked for me. I used this one:
find -name ‘*exp_to_find_in_folders*’ -exec rename “s/exp_to_find_for_replacement/exp_to_replace/” {} \;
I knew only the crapy mv method, i never thought that linux has a “rename”. :P Thanks! :)
Wow, thank you!
Thanks! Did help a lot!
thanx a ton……its amazing, i though linux dont hav rename……but does.
Thanks…
but how i can rename
foo1.a,foo2.a,…,foo10.a
To
xxx1.a,xxx2.a,….,xxx10.a
???
thanks again
rename “s/foo*/bar/g” *.a
Renames any file with an .a extension that contains “foo” to “bar” in the directory.
rename ‘s/foo/xxx/’ foo*.a
rename ‘s/foo(.*)\.a/xxx$1.avi/’ *.a
the (.*) in the round brackets creates a reference that you can use in the name as $1.
you can have more than one match.
Thanks for all the tips. Can you help mi with this specific example? I have files named:
latinum_20080101_0305-200272-93930-2-25.mp3
latinum_20080101_0310-200279-93934-2-25.mp3
latinum_20080101_0315-200671-94112-2-25.mp3
and I want to rename them to get the following:
latinum_20080101_0305.mp3
latinum_20080101_0310.mp3
latinum_20080101_0315.mp3
How can I do that using rename? (I have several hundred of files like that.)
Hey even I’m working on this kind of renaming. Did the solution provided worked for you?? It didn’t worked out for me. Please let me know how have you done it.
Thanks!
A little late , but here goes:
removes everything after the dash and before the .mp3 (dash included)
How about:
rename ‘s/-*//’ *.mp3
Hopefully that should remove everything after the first hyphen. It’s a guess though, try it on a small sample first ;)
Paul.
This rename ‘s/-*//’ *.mp3 did not work for me… Can you please tell me why it didn’t?? Also, Could you please suggest if there is any approach for this…
it follows perl rules.
What you need to do is to tell it:
rename “s/-.+/\.mp3/” *.mp3
The dash will register as it should. The stop right after the dash signifies a single character. The plus after that means “one or more of the previous thing”
to test it, you don’t need to create a new file, just put -n right after rename like this:
rename -n “s/-.+/\.mp3/” *.mp3
My rename doesn’t seem to support regexes. Fedora 10. How can I get this version?
# rename -V
rename (util-linux-ng 2.14.1)
It should work 2.13 was around for sometime and 2.14 is latest. Can paste your example here..
Example file name: 2001DODGE3500546424-10_12_1.JPG
Desired file name: 2001DODGE3500546424-10.jpg
Command:
rename "s/(_[0-9]+)+\.JPG/.jpg/" *.JPGHenry,
Thank You! I’m on Opensuse 11 and this was driving me crazy… I couldn’t figure out if it was my expression or what was going on. I copied the perl file you linked to and put it in my /bin/ folder and set it to executable permissions.
Then I called
/bin/rename ‘s/(_[0-9a-z]{32})+\.jpg/ .jpg/’ *.jpg
Original File: 321-646-001_01_5f81f62b4b8f448ff50eb0788aa628c7.jpeg
New File: 321-646-001_01.jpg
This is just what I needed. I’m using Google Page Speed Firefox Add-On in combo with Firebug to download Optimized versions of all of my sites images. Google rather annoyingly renames all the files and adds a _ character plus a 32 digit alpha numeric string and then changes the extension to .jpeg for .jpg files. This is just the fix that I was looking for.
Thanks Google and Thanks Henry too.
Cool one… Thanks a lot… Good job… Keep this good work going :)
It seems to be a Debian vs. other distros issue. Debian uses prename, perl rename, which it maps to /usr/bin/rename. I found the source for one version of perl rename online at http://tips.webdesign10.com/files/rename.pl.txt and using that, my regex above works as desired.
Henry, this is an incredibly useful tip, thanks a lot. I was bashing my head against a wall trying to figure out why rename on one machine worked but not on another. I uploaded my ubuntu prename to ~/bin on my centos machine and it “just worked”.
I’m very grateful, could have spent hours trying to figure that out! :-)
how can we rename 100 files in folder
1 fooo1.txt
2 fooo2.txt
3 fooo3.txt
….
to :-
1fooo1.txt
1fooo2.txt
1fooo3.txt
…….
I have a lot of .png file with extension “*.png;1″ but I want to rename all in time to “*.png” how to do that?
Thanks :)
oh yeah,i forgot…
example :
addedit.png;1 filesave.png;1 publish_r.png;1
addusers.png;1 folder_add_f2.png;1 publish_x.png;1
apply_f2.png;1 folder_add.png;1 publish_y.png;1
and want to convert to :
addedit.png filesave.png publish_r.png
addusers.png folder_add_f2.png publish_x.png
apply_f2.png folder_add.png publish_y.png
abd now his one :
AAAAAAB0020090617173034173034AAAA21_-_0001329515.txt.gz
into
AAAAAAB0020090617173034AAAA21_-_0001329515.txt.gz
anyone?
so :
for i in *.txt.gz; do mv $i `echo $i |cut -c1-23,30-55` ; done
how can I rename in specified directory only ?
filename.extension? -> filename.extension
(I have downloading script, but after pasting filename in windows codepage all extensions are finished with “?” and windows see filename garbled..)
how can I rename in specified directory only ?
filename.extension? -> filename.extension
(I have downloading script, but after pasting filename in windows codepage all extensions are finished with �?� and windows see filename garbled..)
hello does somebody knows how to rename the following??
from:
konstantin.bcn
konstantin.bcn0
konstantin.bcn1
konstantin.bcn2
to
georg.bcn
georg.bcn0
georg.bcn1
georg.bcn2
thanks a lot in advance!!
konstantin
j=1
for i in *.txt
do
mv $i file$j.bak
j=`expr $j + 1`
done
rename ‘s/konstantin/georg/’ konstantin.bcn*
Nobody has ever asked this question online it seems…
Problem: Stupid MAC (which I dont have anymore named files with these characters:
“:”
“?”
etc.. in the file names.. I could not find any file renamer that would rename these files in Windows/DOS..
So I tried FENDORA linux and I can rename the manually one by one but i have hundreds…
HELP!!!!
No RENAME or mv command works.. I trired everything i can find online..
I tried specifing the “:” like this “\:” “\x3a” etc.. and nothing.
does anyone know how to strip these retardted OS-illegal characters out of the names.. in one shot.?
I know the ren command in DOS.. but I have no clue it seems in Linux.
and no i don’t have a mac or access to one..
Thanks ahead of time, for your help.
rename ‘s/[^[:print:]]/_/g’ *txt
This will replace all ‘non-printable’ characters in the name with and underscore.
Or if that does not work try escaping the character, e.g:
rename ‘s/\?/_/g;s/\:/_/g’ *.txt
I want to rename files and folder like:
test .txt—–>test.txt
text1 .xls—-> text1.xls
“folder1 ” —->>folder1
“folder2 “—–>>fodler2
Actually there are some files and folders in windows which has blank space at the end of file and folder name.
Basically I want to remove blank space at the end of each file and folder.But there are some different extension files as well.
what if i have a load of files named differently(all .jpg) and i want to rename them into a sequence caleld for example ( test001.jpg test002.jpg and so on )? cheers
thx!
What if I have a bunch of files with no extension and I want to add an extension to them? I tried:
rename * *.mp3rename * .mp3 *
rename * .mp3
but I keep getting a Bareword error :(
strAlan: rename’s probably not the best here, try:
[code]
for file in *; do
mv "$file" "$file".mp3;
done
[/code]
cat OPs_taste_in_music > /dev/null
thanks…, good information
Didn’t worked for me. My file name consists spaces :(
Like,
Report July 2010.xls
In a directory we have two files a1a and a2b.
rename a. a a*
rename ‘s/a./a/’ a*
where . represents wildcard “one character”
The expected result should be aa and ab by stripping the numeric character 1 and 2 from the file name.
Neither is working under GNOME Terminal 2.30.1
Why?
Note spaces are easily done using rename.
For example
rename ” ” “_” *.mp3
rename “s/ *//g” *.mp3 as per the original example of the OP does not work for me.
Why?
gal02_1024-768_tcm251-138878.jpg
gal03_1024-768_tcm251-138882.jpg
gal04_1024-768_tcm251-138886.jpg
gal05_1024-768_tcm251-138890.jpg
gal07_1024-768_tcm251-138898.jpg
How to rename these files as 1.jpg 2.jpg….
Backup files before running above code.
In this command:
i=1
for j in *.jpg; do mv “$j” “$i.jpg” ;(( i++ )); done
How would I get the system to number as _00.jpg, _01.jpg, _02.jpg etc……
instead of _00.jpg, _1.jpg, _2.jpg, etc…..
?
I would like to use the script but use strings.
For example i have:
rename s ‘/text/Text/’ *
this checks all files for have the name text in it and renames it to Text.
If i put it in a script:
#!/bin/bash
#rename script
rename ‘s/text/Text/’ *
it works at the following way: $./rename.sh
As i want to fill in what file to rename i want to use the script as following:
$./rename.sh text Text
can somebody help me out how to use variables.
Thnx!
Adjust this with your script and then try -
#!/bin/bash
match=$1
substitute=$2
rename ‘s/’$match’/'$substitute’/’ *
Then Run-
$./rename.sh text Text
how to rename -file to file?
Ok,
I want to check if a file starts with numbers, i.e.:
101-howdy-832.mp3 -> howdy-832.mp3 ->
10-willem-hello-(radio_edit).mp3 -> willem-hello.mp3
and if it does remove it.
Any tips?
if rename didn’t work for you, then use this:
for file in *; do if [ -f $file ] ; then name=${file%\.*}; mv $file ${name}; fi ; done
This only removes *.mp3 :-(
using this command:
i=1
for j in *.jpg; do mv “$j” “$i.jpg” ;(( i++ )); done
How would I get the system to add a 0 when using single digits? So instead of having the results being
_00.jpg, _1.jpg, _2.jpg, etc…….
it would return
_00.jpg, _01.jpg, _02.jpg, etc…
Im writing my own script to rename my mp3 collection, and i want to remove all junk from the filenames:
Is it possible to check if a filename starts with numeric digits?
Cause now it remove all the first characters till -
But i only want it remove (ONLY!) numeric characters till -
i.e.
09-willem-hello.mp3 -> willem-hello.mp3 (remove 09-)
hesss-hodwy.mp3 -> hesss-hodwy.mp3 (nothing removed)
if filename starts with 09; then do; etc :-)
Another thing is how to remove (*_bpm) where * = a wildcard, i.e 120, 59 etc.
This what i’ve made so far:
#!/bin/bash
# Pattern matching using the # ## % %% parameter substitution operators.
pattern1=*-* # * (wild card) matches everything between.
for file in ls *.mp3; do
if [ -e "$file" ]
then
echo “Number of characters ${#file}”
echo Oldname: ${file}
newname=”$(echo ${file#$pattern1} | sed ‘s/ /_/g’ | tr ‘[A-Z]‘ ‘[a-z]‘ | sed ‘s/_feat_/_ft._/g’ | sed ‘s/_feat._/_ft._/g’| sed ‘s/_-_/-/g’)”
if [ "$file" != "$newname" ] ; then
echo Newname: $newname
mv “$file” “$newname”
echo —————————————-
else echo Nothing to do!
fi
#echo ‘${var1#$pattern2} =’ “${var1#$pattern2}” # d12345abc6789
# Shortest possible match, strips out first 3 characters abcd12345abc6789
# ^^^^^ |-|
#echo ‘${var1##$pattern1} =’ “${var1##$pattern1}” # 6789
# Longest possible match, strips out first 12 characters abcd12345abc6789
# ^^^^^ |———-|
fi
done
exit 0
I also want include this:
match=feat versus (radio)
substitute=ft. vs. (radio_edit)
newname=”$(echo ${file#$pattern1} | sed ‘s/’$match’/’$substitute’/g’)”
willem versus wca feat wasd – hello world (radio)
willem_vs._wca_ft.wasd-hello_world-(radio_edit)
So i can as much items to change as i want.
Hope someone can help me out! :-)
Im sick and tired of using windows based tools in wine to do this, while bash is even stronger and more fun to learn ;-)
wow this is a popular post for good reason. I wonder if its still active.
Can this descend in to directories? I’d like to rename some image files with the following file and directory structure.
01/01-0012.jpg
01/01-0342.jpg
02/02-3495.jpg
…..
98/34-0424.jpg
so i would like to rename them to
01/01-001.jpg
01/01-034.jpg
02/02-349.jpg
…..
98/34-042.jpg
So i really just want to cut the last number before the .jpg but the files literally span 99 directories, so don’t want to do it for each one. Any ideas?
hi, I need to add a letter into file name in many files but not using automator, is it possible?
for example: I have files like 1.png, fs.png, ghasd.png and need to add “-hd” so the name will be 1-hd.png fs-hd.png, and original files will be not deleted, how to do that? :) thanx!
you can do the following:
# rename .png -hd.png *.png
How about that? :)
Let me know if you need any further help
Excellent write up!!
Thank you sir…
Been browsing the internet for a while for this, and just came across this neat little command, instead of people writing different scripts and such.. AWESOME!!
$ rename .bak .txt *.bak – command worked for me to rename all *.bak to *.txt
Many Thanks
Very Helpful. Thank You :)
On OSX I didn’t have rename handy, so I came up with this to change extensions of a bunch of files:
find . -name “*.ext1″ | sed s/ext1// | xargs -I % mv %.ext1 %.ext2
I imagine it could be done in a more simple fashion, but it works well if you need to swap something at the end or the beginning of the filenames.
Hi, I am trying to rename some files with .ext to ones without .ext in RedHat 5
For eg: files like “ocean_11h20110906.txt” have to renamed as “ocean_11h20110906″
tried almost all the commands mentioned above. i have several such files to be renamed without extensions. Can anyone help me out. Plz treat this as urgent.
This is a very usefule and informative thread. However, i haven’t quite got exactly how how I would do my renaming. I need to rename daily files from format
XX_AA1234_201109.txt to AA1234_201109_XX.ext. Note that I need to change both position of a string and the extension itself. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!
@Gary
rename XX_ “” *.txt; rename .txt _XX.ext *.txt
@VIVEK
I think your example about the AXEL-CRAZYFROG.mp3 file is not correct. The – will not be added with your code. I think you forgot to include the hypen in the original name.
@paxpacis-Appreciate your input. however, I don’t think I understand your solution. Here are some example files:
AF_DD2795_199905_20110824.txt should be renamed to DD2795_199905_20110824_AF.raw
AF_DD2795_199905_20110924.txt should be renamed to DD2795_199905_20110924_AF.raw
How do I automate this?
Hey,
Thanks for the tip, but the rename command didnt work on my Fedora 15 x64. I didnt get any error message, but the spaces didnt go ! As one suggested above, does it work only on debian systems ? I checked man rename, there is no info on usage. Just has description of the -v switch. I am using “rename (util-linux 2.19.1)”
Thanks !
i=0; for image in *.jpg; do mv “$image” “Name with spaces `printf “%.3d” $i`.jpg”; ((i++)); done
Renames:
asdlkjas.jpg
reojsd.jpg
asfkjdf.jpg
to
Name with spaces 000.jpg
Name with spaces 001.jpg
Name with spaces 002.jpg
“Figure 03-01-02: GradeBook class declaration with one method: Createing a Gradebook object an calling its displayMessage method.avi”
How can we bulk rename files like this? These are located in subfolders like
“Blaa: blaaaaah: bla bla: bla” etc.
None of the posted above methods not working. :(
I need replace all these stupid “:”.
Well god points, but how about this :
rename muiltiple files in subfolders… (.nfo to movie.nfo )