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renamer

Renamer is a command-line utility to help rename files and folders. It is flexible and extensible via plugins.

Disclaimer

Always run this tool with the --dry-run option until you are confident the results look correct.

Synopsis

The examples below use double quotes to suit Windows users. MacOS & Linux users should use single quotes.

As input, renamer takes a list of filenames or glob patterns plus some options describing how you would like the files to be renamed.

$ renamer [options] [file...]

This trivial example will replace the text jpeg with jpg in all file and directory names in the current directory.

$ renamer --find jpeg --replace jpg *

As above but operates on all files and folders recursively.

$ renamer --find jpeg --replace jpg "**"

Fine-tune which files to process

If no filenames or patterns are specified, renamer will look for a newline-separated list of filenames on standard input. This approach is useful for crafting a specific input list using tools like find. This example operates on files modified less than 20 minutes ago.

$ find . -mtime -20m | renamer --find jpeg --replace jpg

Same again but with a hand-rolled input of filenames and glob patterns. Create an input text file, e.g. files.txt:

house.jpeg
garden.jpeg
img/*

Then pipe it into renamer.

$ cat files.txt | renamer --find jpeg --replace jpg

Rename using regular expressions

Simple example using a regular expression literal. The case-insensitive pattern /one/i matches the input file ONE.jpg, renaming it to two.jpg.

$ renamer --find "/one/i" --replace "two" ONE.jpg

Rename using JavaScript

For more complex renames, or if you just prefer using code, you can write a replace function. Create a module exporting a class which defines a replace method. This trivial example appends the text [DONE] to each file name.

import path from 'path'

class Suffix {
  replace (filePath) {
    const file = path.parse(filePath)
    const newName = file.name + ' [DONE]' + file.ext
    return path.join(file.dir, newName)
  }
}

export default Suffix

Save the above as suffix.js then process all files in the current directory using the above plugin as the replace chain.

$ renamer --dry-run --chain suffix.js *

Dry run

✔︎ pic1.jpg → pic1 [DONE].jpg
✔︎ pic2.jpg → pic2 [DONE].jpg

Rename complete: 2 of 6 files renamed.

Views

The following gif demonstrates the default view (with and without --verbose mode), the built-in alternative views (long, diff and one-line) and a custom view.

Further reading

Please see the wiki for

• Usage examples.
• More information about using plugins and writing plugins.
• The full list of command-line options.

For more information on Regular Expressions, see this useful guide.

Install

First, ensure Node.js v14 or above is installed.

To install renamer globally as a part of your regular command-line tool kit:

$ npm install --global renamer

To install renamer as a development dependency of your project:

$ npm install --save-dev renamer

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© 2012-25 Lloyd Brookes <[email protected]>.

Tested by test-runner.