Batch Renamer and Mover (Bram) is a program for Windows that you can use to rename and move files. The program needs to be installed on the system. Please note that it requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

When you start it you see a folder and file browser plus some options in the main interface. The program assumes that you want to rename files. You need to locate the up arrow button next to the Apply button to change that. Available for option there are Move or Copy and Rename, Rename then Copy or only move or copy related operations.

You then start by selecting a root folder for the operation. Only this root folder will be processed by default. You can make changes to the behavior in the configuration bar. Here it is possible to enable subfolder support and to filter for specific file types only.

The renaming options are displayed on the right side of the footer toolbar. Here it is possible to set the new naming scheme for the files. The program supports variables that you can add to the name with a click on the Parts button. Available for selection are for instance the current name, a number, the date or the parent folder.

A click on Preview displays the new name next to the old one in the file listing. This is handy as it allows you to make modifications to the name scheme in case the new name is not after your liking.

A click on apply processes the files in the selected folder structure. If you have selected to copy or move you will see a folder browser window where you can select the target folder for those operations.

Bram creates a log file of the operation automatically. The program has a few usability issues and nuisances that I’d like to point out. The program window (default 1024×768) for one can only be increased in window size. It is not possible to reduce the size of the window.

The arrow button hides the operations, and it is likely that many users won’t click on it to see what it does. Lastly an option to restore previously made changes would come in handy.

Bram regardless of that is a handy file renaming and moving software for the Windows operating system. Windows users can download the application directly from the developer website.

The software is available as a portable version, command line version and installer for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. The benefit of the installer is the option to integrate the program into the Windows Explorer context menu for easier root folder selection.

The main screen is packed to the brim with settings that all define the renaming process. The developers have sorted the renaming options into 13 different steps that are indicated by numbers displayed in the interface.

It begins with the selection of a root folder; The files that are stored in the folder are shown on the right side along with information such as file name, new name after the renaming options have been processed, file type, size and various other information.

The new name column acts as a preview so that it is always clear how the resulting file names will look like.

The various renaming options may look intimidating at first, users who have worked with the program for a while however will have no troubles configuring the options in short time, especially since only the required options need to be configured.The criteria are processed from left to right indicated by numbers.

Lets take a look at the individual renaming options:

• RegEx, Use regular expressions to match part of or all of the file name to replace it. Option to include the extension in the rules available.
• File, Option to keep, remove, reverse or use a fixed filename for all items.
• Replace, Simply replace option to replace text
• Case, Change to lower, upper, title or sentence case.
• Removals, Remove chars from the names, many different options.
• Move / Copy, move or copy part or all of the filename to a different location.
• Additions, add suffixes or prefixes to the file name. Supports several EXIF and ID3 tags
• Auto Date, add a date prefix or suffix to the file name
• Append Folder Name, append the folder name to the file name
• Numbering, sequentially number a group of files.
• Extension, Change the case of the extension, e.g. lower, upper case or title.
• Selections, add file filters, hidden files, include subfolders, or specific minimum and maximum length of files to rename.
• New Location, copy or move the renamed files to a new location.

Additional options have been added to the program, they are available from the Options menu at the top. Noteworthy features include changing file attributes, timestamps and character translations.

Bulk Rename Utility has a few other aces up its sleeve. It can for instance rename files from a text file, remove accented characters, sort files randomly or display images in the built-in picture viewer.

The program is very sophisticated and at the same time straightforward to use once the initial “omg this looks messy” reaction ends. The developers state that the program has no problems handling folders with more than 100,000 files in them, and that it can batch rename 1,000s of files in seconds.

Interested users should start with the introduction of the program on the developer website. The excellent pdf manual explains every setting in the program interface, it is therefor recommended to download the manual to have it at hand during the first few times the file renamer is used on the system.

The download page lists 32-bit and 64-bit downloads, as well as the pdf manual and downloads for the portable and command line version. Bulk Rename Utility is compatible with all versions of Windows from Windows NT to Windows 7.

GPRename is batch renamer for both files and directories that is released under the GPL v3. It’s easy to install, and even easier to use. In fact, GPRename is so easy to use you will find the task of batch renaming (one that used to be a real pain) one of the easiest tasks you have. In this article I am going to show you how to install and use GPRename so you can start batch renaming all of those files and folders just waiting for a name change.

Features

The feature list of GPRename isn’t the most lengthy of lists, but what more do you need from a batch renamer than:

• Rename files and folders
• Case change
• Inserte/delete
• Replace/remove
• Numerical addition
• Preview
• Built in log

That’s pretty much the gist of the features. Let’s get on with the installation.

Installation

As you would expect, the installation of GPRename is simple:

• Open up your Add/Remove Software utility.
• Search for “gprename” (no quotes).
• Mark GPRename for installation.
• Click Apply to install.

That’s it. When the installation is complete, close the Add/Remove Software tool and get ready to rename.

Usage

Figure 1

To start the tool in GNOME click Applications > Accessories > GPRename. To start the tool in KDE click Start > Applications > Utilities > GPRename. Which will open up the main window (See Figure 1).

As you can see I have GPRename opened to the ~/Pictures directory which is displaying only three images (it’s a new account). With these three images I can demonstrate how this tool works. It’s actually quite simple. let’s say  you want to add the date to all of the file names in the directory. To do this follow these steps:

1. Select the files you want to rename.
2. Click on the Insert/Delete tab.
3. Select Insert.
4. Decide where you want to insert the first character of the date (remember position 0 is the first character).
5. 

   Figure 2

   Enter the data string you want to add in the text field.

6. Click Preview to view the changes (see Figure 2).
7. If the preview suits you, click the Rename button to make the changes.

Now let’s say you simply want to number the files in a directory. This is just as easy. To do this follow these easy steps:

1. Select all the files you need to make changes to.
2. Click on the Numerical tab.
3. Select the number you want to start with.
4. Set how you want the numbers to be incremented by.
5. If you want a character between the number and the file name (such as “_”) add it to the “and after” section (see Figure 3).
6. 

   Figue 3

   Make sure Keep Existing Names (either Before or After) is checked.

7. Click Preview to see the changes.
8. If the preview suits you, click Rename.

That’s all it takes to batch rename files with Linux.

Final thoughts

GPRename is an outstanding tool to use in place of writing shell scripts in order to rename multiple files in Linux. You won’t find an easier tool for this task (if you’re not already used to whipping up a shell script).

Rename Master’s interface looks and feels slightly more complicated than that of Caterpixer. The main reason for that are the buttons and options that are presented to the user in the lower half of the interface. The upper part consists of a file browser that is displaying the directory structure of the computer system on the left side and the actual files of the active directory on the right. A file filter is available to display only files matching a certain pattern. This is also the location where the new file names can be previewed before starting the renaming.

The lower part of the interface consists of four tabs that are used to configure the renaming. The scripting tab is the main tab in the renaming process. It contains ten options to rename the selected files which can be divided into options to add and remove characters. A click on the + sign in front of a filter will open the configuration menu of that filter. Any changes made to that filter will later be displayed in the overview as well.

A click on the preview button will display the new file names in the upper part of the interface next to the old names. The three additional tabs in the lower area of the interface can be used to configure case and wildcards, counting and text files that are used to rename files.

Windows users who want more control over the renaming process might want to take a look at Rename Master. The application takes more time to adjust to but rewards the user with better options to batch rename files in the operating system.

The computer software supports both renaming operations on file contents but also on file names and supports the use of the two wildcards (*) and (?). The interface of the application is tab driven and the user is working from the left tab to the right to configure the renaming operations. Source files will be selected in the first tab. This can be done by typing them in, pasting them in or using a file browser that unfortunately cannot load the contents of directories into the application. Files can be excluded by dates.

The next tab defines the file replacements. It is possible to define multiple strings to be replaced in here. The options in the third tab contain several important settings like matching only whole words, enabling wildcard use, case sensitivity or limiting the replacements.

The fourth tab contains logging options. A record log will be written by default which will log all operations. This can be changed to disable logging or to log only positive or negative hits. The batch tab is the final tab which allows to execute batch files before or after the operation.

File Substring Replacement Utility is compatible with all editions of Windows including Windows XP and Windows Vista. It can be downloaded directly from the developer’s homepage.

Update: Program is Shareware. Possible free alternatives are TurboSR, String Find & Replace or Replace Text.

Filters can be used to exclude or include files and folders. It is for instance possible to exclude hidden or system files from being renamed. Several different name manipulation rules can be added including adding, deleting, replacing or serializing characters.

Interesting is the support of various meta tag information that can be added to the filename. Supported are among others ID3, Avi, EXIF, IPTC, HASH and File information. This means that ReNamer can be used to rename photo, music or video collections with ease.

The screenshot above is demonstrating a basic renaming example. The first rule removes all characters with the exception of the file extension from the filename while the second rule adds the playing time and the file size as the name name for the selected files.

ReNamer can also be used to strip certain characters from files, cleanup file and folder names (remove brackets among other things) and transliterate non-English characters with English representations.

It provides furthermore access to regular expressions and Pascal Script for advanced renaming needs. Rules can be saved as presets that can be loaded into the application again at any time to perform the same renaming operations again.

The software is very responsive and definitely one of the best file renamers for the Windows platform.

That is not helpful if all file names should be named differently and renaming files individually would take to much time. Enter the batch file rename application Text to File Renamer. Text to File Renamer is a portable application that can speed up the file renaming process.

The user can drag and drop files into the left pane of the application and enter file names typed, pasted or entered by dragging and dropping a text file into the right panel. The lines should correspond and the user can use the right pane as a text editor to move names around so that each filename will be renamed properly.

When all lines correspond to each other a click on the Rename button renames all listed file names at once. The file extension is not listed because it will remain as is. The process is considerably shorter than renaming the files manually but the application could use a few automatic manipulation options to reduce the time it takes to enter the new filenames.