![]() Set the Type popup menu to accept folders, checking the Allow Multiple Selections box. Locate this by typing “ask” in the find box, select the Ask for Finder Items action in the resulting list, drag it to the workflow area and drop it there.Ģ. The first step in this workflow should be to display a file or folder selection dialog, invoked by the Ask for Finder Items action. Open Automator from your main Applications folder, create a new document in the opening file selector, and select its default option to create a new workflow. Note that NameChanger treats extensions as regular text elements in the filename, and can therefore be used to change extension if you wish.ġ. Once you are happy, click on the Rename tool to rename them. In each case, the list of Renamed filenames will show you how they will turn out. There are ten different options, including Sequence, for generating names using index or serial numbers, and Regular expression, which allows you to use all the power of regular expressions. You can drag and drop files onto the Original Filename pane, or click on the + Add tool to add them using the standard file browser.Ģ. You can of course apply these renaming rules in sequence, to perform more complex patterns, such as turning bookchapa.txt into 1LordOfTheRings.txt, perhaps.ġ. So you might find it ideal for turning bookchapa.txt into 1Filebookchapa.txt, and so on. This gives a range of options for serialising the names, which can consist of a custom text element, an index or serial number or date, and the existing name. Thus it would be good for changing file1.txt to bookfile1.txt or file1app.txt.Ĥ. This adds a fixed string of text either before or after the existing file names, but always before the extension. Note that this cannot change the extension, only the name before the extension.ģ. This is ideal for changing file1.txt, for example, to doc1.txt. This replaces the text entered into the Find box with that given in the Replace with box. This gives you three options for renaming, through its popup menu.Ģ. In that, select the Rename items… command. Select all the files that you want to rename, and right-click (or two-finger tap) to bring up the Finder’s contextual menu. The methods offered here should give you a good choice to accomplish every task efficiently.ġ. These could be applied to every file, or could depend on existing information such as extensions or file types. Similarly AppleScript is an excellent language for performing this type of task, but it is Automator’s friendly visual scripting system that offers most users the best power-to-complexity ratio.ĭepending on the precise nature of the renaming desired, you might want to remove or replace characters within file names, change the naming convention to incorporate date, sequence numbers, or the like, truncate names, or add or modify extensions. The time and effort required to learn these is great, so unless you can use them in other situations they are unlikely to prove a wise investment. The most powerful tools for renaming files are, inevitably, the most complex: script languages such as Perl run from Terminal’s command line, using regular expressions (regex). Used carefully they can whistle through such tasks in the twinkling of an eye. Rather than waste hours doing it by hand, it repays the modest effort to build an Automator workflow, or the cost of a dedicated tool such as A Better Finder Rename. ![]() Yet there are times when you need to rename batches of files, perhaps because they came from an old archive, or need to be loaded onto a server that requires different conventions. ![]() It takes two command-line (or Automator) arguments like so:Īnd results in a display dialog showing a count of the renamed files and elapsed time:īased on this CSV with line-endings as newlines:Ībort("Usage: #(.There is nothing as soul-destroying as tediously changing the names of tens or hundreds of files in the Finder. I even tossed in some AppleScript to keep the peace with Camelot… □ Tested on macOS 11.5.2 with Ruby 3.0.2 and Apple's Ruby v2.6.3. Ruby expects two-spaces for indenting, so opening this Ruby script in other than a proper programmer's editor will destroy the formatting and croak the code. Late to the party, but I solved it in Ruby.
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