Rename all files in a directory with a Windows batch script

Question

How would I write a batch or cmd file that will rename all files in a directory? I am using Windows.

Change this:

750_MOT_Forgiving_120x90.jpg
751_MOT_Persecution_1_120x90.jpg
752_MOT_Persecution_2_120x90.jpg
753_MOT_Hatred_120x90.jpg
754_MOT_Suffering_120x90.jpg
755_MOT_Freedom_of_Religion_120x90.jpg
756_MOT_Layla_Testimony_1_120x90.jpg
757_MOT_Layla_Testimony_2_120x90.jpg

To this:

750_MOT_Forgiving_67x100.jpg
751_MOT_Persecution_1_67x100.jpg
752_MOT_Persecution_2_67x100.jpg
753_MOT_Hatred_67x100.jpg
754_MOT_Suffering_67x100.jpg
755_MOT_Freedom_of_Religion_67x100.jpg
756_MOT_Layla_Testimony_1_67x100.jpg
757_MOT_Layla_Testimony_2_67x100.jpg

Dude, if you want help you can't expect everyone to be psychic. — Diodeus - James MacFarlane, Feb 21 '12 at 18:36

score 39 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

39

A FOR statement to loop through the names (type FOR /? for help), and string search and replace (type SET /? for help).

@echo off
setlocal enableDelayedExpansion
for %%F in (*120x90.jpg) do (
  set "name=%%F"
  ren "!name!" "!name:120x90=67x100!"
)

UPDATE - 2012-11-07

I've investigated how the RENAME command deals with wildcards: How does the Windows RENAME command interpret wildcards?

It turns out that this particular problem can be very easily solved using the RENAME command without any need for a batch script.

ren *_120x90.jpg *_67x100.*

The number of characters after the _ does not matter. The rename would still work properly if 120x90 became x or xxxxxxxxxx. The important aspect of this problem is that the entire text between the last _ and the . is replaced.

edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:18

Community

1
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answered Feb 21 '12 at 18:47

dbenham

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I'm not sure if this is a complete example. But [This](http://stackoverflow.com/a/3811991) worked for me like a charm :) – Anand Rockzz Nov 07 '12 at 04:09
2

@Anand - I've added a much simpler solution using just the REN command. The link in your comment is basically the same as my original answer. – dbenham Nov 07 '12 at 05:35
Can you split out your two answers? I would leave the `ren` one-liner in this one; it's the best! – Iain Samuel McLean Elder Mar 20 '14 at 11:02

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

As of Windows 7 you can do this in one line of PowerShell.

powershell -C "gci | % {rni $_.Name ($_.Name -replace '120x90', '67x100')}"

Explanation

powershell -C "..." launches a PowerShell session to run the quoted command. It returns to the outer shell when the command completes. -C is short for -Command.

gci returns all the files in the current directory. It is an alias for Get-ChildItem.

| % {...} makes a pipeline to process each file. % is an alias for Foreach-Object.

$_.Name is the name of the current file in the pipeline.

($_.Name -replace '120x90', '67x100') uses the -replace operator to create the new file name. Each occurrence of the first substring is replaced with the second substring.

rni changes the name of each file. The first parameter (called -Path) identifies the file. The second parameter (called -NewName) specifies the new name. rni is an alias for Rename-Item.

Example

$ dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is A817-E7CA

 Directory of C:\fakedir\test

11/09/2013  16:57    <DIR>          .
11/09/2013  16:57    <DIR>          ..
11/09/2013  16:56                 0 750_MOT_Forgiving_120x90.jpg
11/09/2013  16:57                 0 751_MOT_Persecution_1_120x90.jpg
11/09/2013  16:57                 0 752_MOT_Persecution_2_120x90.jpg
               3 File(s)              0 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  243,816,271,872 bytes free

$ powershell -C "gci | % {rni $_.Name ($_.Name -replace '120x90', '67x100')}"

$ dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is A817-E7CA

 Directory of C:\fakedir\test

11/09/2013  16:57    <DIR>          .
11/09/2013  16:57    <DIR>          ..
11/09/2013  16:56                 0 750_MOT_Forgiving_67x100.jpg
11/09/2013  16:57                 0 751_MOT_Persecution_1_67x100.jpg
11/09/2013  16:57                 0 752_MOT_Persecution_2_67x100.jpg
               3 File(s)              0 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  243,816,271,872 bytes free

I figured it out by messing around with the RobbCopy script and creating a goto function inside the bat file.. thanks I am not familiar with powershell as much but if I had to have a timestamp value it would be `yyyymmddss` with a mask that would have `_1 _2 _3 etc...` depending on the number of files.. I was able to do this in a batch file using robocopy.. — MethodMan, Sep 05 '16 at 00:19
In Windows Powershell, I got a "The term '.Name' is not recognized" error. I was trying to replace blanks with underscores. In the error message, there was a squiggly line (~~~~~) under the second .Name. I then tried simply Get-ChildItem | Foreach-Object {Rename-item $_.Name ($_.Name -replace ' ', '_')} and got a "Source and destination path must be different." error. Finally, this worked: Get-ChildItem -File | Foreach-Object {Rename-item $_.Name ($_.Name -replace ' ', '_')} I think it was because there were zip files in the folder where I was renaming. — David Hicks, Feb 28 '23 at 19:31

Rename all files in a directory with a Windows batch script

2 Answers2

Explanation

Example

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