How to batch rename files on Windows without software

Storing technical libraries forces Windows users to find ways to manage files more efficiently, and one of the most effective solutions is to batch rename files. 

Use Windows Explorer / File Explorer

Using Windows Explorer (Windows 7) and File Explorer (Windows 10/8 / 8.1) is probably the easiest way to batch rename multiple files on Windows. To do this, select all the files you want to rename (hold down Ctrl while clicking on a file to select non-contiguous files), press the F2 button (or right-click the files, choose Rename ) and then import. name the new file and press the Enter button or click your mouse to another location.

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This is a basic but inflexible solution, as it is not possible to change the file extension nor restrict or change the Windows automatic adding of sequence numbers . For more advanced functions We will have to use the command line solution and Windows Powershell features .

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Batch rename files using Command Prompt

It's much more flexible to rename files in batch using the command line, as it also allows you to change file extensions. But first let's learn how to batch rename files without changing the extension.

Batch rename files without changing the extension

Step 1. Access the folder containing the files that need to be batch renamed. Right-click on any file name and select the command Open command windows here (Windows 7) or go to File Explore (Windows 8), select File menu > Open command prompt > Open command prompt .

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Step 2. A command line window will appear in the location of the folder you selected. Enter the command line: ren file * .A name * .A to batch rename files. Don't forget to replace " file " with the current file name and " name " with the new name you want to change. A is the file extension, for example HTML, JPEG, TXT. Assuming you want to rename all .html files in the directory, the command would look like this:

ren file * . html name * .html

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Once that's done, all the files in that folder will be renamed to the new one and they'll keep the same extension.

Change file extensions

If you want to change the extensions of multiple files at once, use the command: ren * .html * .txt.

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The above command will rename all files with extension from * .html to * .txt.

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Convert alphanumeric parts in multiple files

If you want to rename multiple files, you can use wildcards to make the change. For example, if you want to change the digits in your filename you can use the following command:

ren document??.txt document3??.txt

Here, the question mark wildcard acts like any character, allowing the command to find any matching file while exporting the renamed files.

Batch rename files with suffixes

How about adding suffix to a file group? You can do that by using the following command:

ren *.* ???????-test.*

In this command, the asterisk wildcard works in place of any character. So "*. *" Means to find any filename, with any extension, in this directory. The second part (with all question marks) requires the command to use the existing filename up to 7 characters, but add "-test" as a suffix, while the asterisk again means apply for any file extension.

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If you want to prefix it, move the "-test" part of the command forward, like so:

ren *.* test-???????.*

Batch delete parts of the file name

You can also use batch file renaming to delete part of the filename. Let's say you have a bunch of documents named "jan-Budget.xlsx", "feb-Budget.xlsx", "mar-Budget.xlsx", etc. You can remove the suffix "-budget" with the following command. :

ren ???-budget.xlsx ???.xlsx

Using Windows Powershell

Windows Powershell also has advanced features and is easier to use than using the command prompt above. Now to batch rename files without changing the extension, press the Windows button and type "PowerShell" into the Search box and press Enter to open Powershell.

Type dir and press Enter to see a list of files.

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From here, you can start batch renaming files with PowerShell.

Batch rename files

PowerShell offers several different options for batch renaming of files. One option is to replace part of the file name with something else, which is very handy for replacing files from digital cameras.

Dir | Rename-Item –NewName { $_.name –replace "DSC","summer2020" }

Where "DSC" is part of the original file name from the digital camera or photo folder on a smartphone and "summer2020" is the output file name.

You can also use the same command to replace small snippets of filenames. For example, the following command replaces the underscore with a dash:

Dir | Rename-Item –NewName { $_.name –replace "_","-" }

Batch rename files with increasing numbers

You can use the following command to batch rename files, adding a different number to each file.

Dir | %{Rename-Item $_ -NewName ("summer2020{0}.jpg" -f $nr++)}

Batch rename files in entire folders

One thing you can do with PowerShell is to batch rename files across entire folders, instead of a single directory. This command works from the top of the file directory and down, batching renaming files to match within each subdirectory.

Get-ChildItem -Filter "*current*" -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.name -replace 'current','old' }

Get help with PowerShell

These are just some of the bulk renaming options available for PowerShell. If you want more options, you can see the available examples of PowerShell with the following command:

get-help Rename-Item –examples

Use third-party extensions

In addition to Windows built-in solutions, if a more powerful tool is needed to rename multiple files at once, it is possible to use third-party utilities such as Flash Renamer , Total Commander , Name Dropper or Rename Master .

Isabella Humphrey

Update 14 December 2020