Load up a list of files into NameChanger, make your changes, and preview how your filenames will be transformed before the changes are applied. If you like it, you can make a donation to the developers on the download page. NameChanger, an application for batch renaming files, is free to download. Hopefully, you’re already backing up your computer, but because it’s possible in the course of batch editing filenames to accidentally rename your files something weird, unrecognizable, and completely unusable, it’s not a bad idea to also copy your files to a new folder before you get started. We’re just going to need some extra tools.īefore we get started, though, let’s talk backup. That’s okay, because we can still get the job done. Similarly, when I’m researching, I like to prepend a topic keyword to the filenames of all my accompanying documents, so I know what belongs to which project.ĭoing that by hand, especially to dozens of files and folders, is slow going, and Mac OS X hasn’t provided a way for us to batch rename files natively.

If all of your images are called something like IMG_0974.JPG, that’s not very descriptive and isn’t going to help you find all your snaps from your trip to Costa Rica. There are a few different reasons I can easily think of to batch rename files, including renaming images so they make more sense, organizing documents within a folder, or separating out files by the date they were created. We’ll look at two apps that accomplish the same task, batch renaming files, in different ways, and we’ll even create our own application in Automator that batch renames files exactly how we want it done. If you want to batch rename files, you have to look outside, to third party apps or maybe Automator workflows. Batch renaming files has never been incredibly easy, or even possible at all, out of the box in OS X.

File renamer for mac