Renaming Multiple Files in Windows

You don’t have to rename files individually if you want them all to have more-or-less the same name

I’ve recently been transferring TV programs that I have recorded from DVDs to a Seagate “NAS” drive. “NAS” means “Network attached storage”. At its simplest, this is an external hard drive that connects to the router so that all computers on the network can access it. It also, however, acts as a “media streamer”. In other words, it can deliver content stored on it to (for instance) a Smart TV.

This transfer means that I’m going to end up with loads of files on the NAS drive with similar names. As an example, there were eight episodes in the series “The Planets”. In transferring them to the NAS drive I have put them all in a folder called (natch) “The Planets”. The filenames they started off with are shown in Figure 1. If this setup is replicated with many other series of videos, then I’m going to end up with loads of files called “1DVD_VIDEO_RECORDER.MP4” etc. Admittedly they will be separated into folders that are more meaningfully named, but I’m odd enough to want things better organised than that.

So, how do you rename files without doing them all individually?

Begin by selecting all the files. If you are selecting all the files in the folder then the easiest way to do this is to click on a single file and then hit Ctrl a (ie, depress the Ctrl key and, while it is depressed, tap the letter “a”). All files will then highlighted. If you are not selecting all the files in a folder then click on the first file and “shift-click” on the last file.

Then right-click on the first file and left-click on the rename option (see Figure 2). This is exactly the same as if you were renaming a single file (except that you can see that there are other files that are highlighted). Go ahead and rename the file and then, as normal, hit the “enter” key.

 


 


 

You will now see (as in Figure 3), that all the selected files have been renamed with the same name, followed by an incrementing number in brackets. It is important to note that the numbering aspect of the renaming uses the same file order as the files started with. So, in my case, I had already made sure that each episode was given the correct number (1-8) when transferring from DVD. Since I was displaying the files in filename order, this ensured that the final renumbering followed the same sequence as my original numbering.

 

Suppose, however, that you had 20 spreadsheets that all related to “household budget” and you had given them lots of different names over time. Renaming and numbering according to the alphabetical sequence of these various names may not make much sense. It would probably be more logical to order your files by date before renaming them. That way, the number part of the filename would increment with time (assuming you had sorted them older down to newer and not the other way around!). Of course, if the files you wanted to renumber were mixed up with lots of other files, you might need to copy them to their own folder before changing the order and renaming them.

And in case you hadn’t realised it, sorting files by different columns (eg filename, date modified) is easy: just click on the column header itself (eg “Name” above the actual file names). Click on the column header again to sort it in the other direction (A-Z or Z-A etc).

This renaming works for at least Windows 7 onwards. If you are using anything older, then it’s time to think about updating (particularly if you are still using XP!!!)

Next time I will look at how you rename multiple files on a Mac. It’s more sophisticated than on a PC.