Rename files having no extension

Question

How can we rename all files in a folder having no extension at all to ".something"?

I have tried ren *.* *.jpeg and few more but nothing working.

Possible duplicate of [Find and rename files with no extension?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1025410/find-and-rename-files-with-no-extension) — Rishav, Feb 26 '18 at 18:56

score 17 · Answer 1 · edited May 10 '23 at 04:43

17

Asterisk * matches any extension. You want to match no extension, so don't supply one. Both of the below variants will do in your case:

ren * *.jpeg
ren *. *.jpeg

NOTE: you may read here about the peculiarities of using * and *. with the ren command.

The above only works in Windows Command shell (cmd). PowerShell's wildcards work differently, and mostly don't do anything special with extensions. What's more, batch renaming in PowerShell works differently. So:

dir -Filter "*." -File | ren -NewName { $_.name -replace "$", ".jpeg" }

edited May 10 '23 at 04:43

informatik01

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answered Feb 26 '18 at 14:32

Jeroen Mostert

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This gave this error for me: ren : Cannot rename because item at '*.' does not exist. – EBGreen Feb 26 '18 at 14:38
@EBGreen: correct, that only works with cmd. The PowerShell version is more involved, see edit. (Although there may be a more elegant way.) – Jeroen Mostert Feb 26 '18 at 14:42
You explained very well , as earlier i was trying to run it through powershell.. by using simple cmd 'ren ......' command... & That's why it didn't worked.... Cool – Rishabh Feb 27 '18 at 19:37

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 08 '21 at 14:51

"rename *. *.jpg" weirdly will bring up "The syntax of the command is incorrect." if there are no files without extensions in the location. I thought the command stopped working at first! So just letting people know if they have the same thing come up.

EBGreen · Answer 3 · 2018-02-26T14:53:06.957

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This is tested and works for me:

ls -file | ?{$_.extension -eq ''} | %{ren $_ ($_.name + '.jpeg')}

edited Feb 26 '18 at 14:53

answered Feb 26 '18 at 14:41

EBGreen

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 26 '18 at 15:09

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A slight variation:

dir -filter *. -file | rename-item -NewName {"$($_.name)`.jpg"}

answered Feb 26 '18 at 15:09

Gene Laisne

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 26 '18 at 18:56

You did everything correct but instead of *.* you ought to use *. as *.* searches for all files with all extensions but the former searches for all files with no extension and that is what you want. So here is your code:

rename *. *.something

You can refer to this answer for further help.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 27 '18 at 05:16

2

try this:

Get-ChildItem "c:\temp" -file "*." | rename-item -NewName {"{0}.something" -f $_.fullname}

answered Feb 27 '18 at 05:16

Esperento57

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This is too hard to try... I just wanted a simple command...😄 if you understand, but thanks for the help – Rishabh Feb 27 '18 at 19:34
its a really command PowerShell, others proposition base on alias :) – Esperento57 Feb 27 '18 at 19:51
this was great for Powershell, thanks. – az1d Oct 02 '21 at 17:40

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 26 '18 at 14:33

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For me as simple as ren * *.jpeg worked.

answered Feb 26 '18 at 14:33

Alex

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this gave an invalid path for me – EBGreen Feb 26 '18 at 14:37
Double-checked: renaming of 3 files with no extension in Windows cmd did the job. – Alex Feb 26 '18 at 14:41
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Aaah...my mistake, I assumed powershell. You are correct that it will add the .jpeg to all the files. ***All the files*** including files with an extension. – EBGreen Feb 26 '18 at 14:43
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Yeah, to give to only without extension would be ren *. *.jpeg – Alex Feb 26 '18 at 14:45

Rename files having no extension

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