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.

It happens if the file is already highlighted in Windows Explorer and if it is left-clicked again, or if the user double-clicks on the file and the double-clicks are interpreted as two single clicks.

First the bad news: There is no option to disable the left-click renaming feature in Windows. There are however settings and options that may help prevent the situation in first place.

The easiest option is to left-click on the icon and not on the name if the file or folder is already highlighted in Windows Explorer. This will never trigger the rename and is usually the safest option. I’m not sure why someone would like to left-click on an already highlighted file again but there are users apparently who do that. Highlighted files and folders can also be opened with the enter key.

The majority of problems seems to stem from double-clicks on files and folders that are interpreted as single clicks by Windows. This could indicate that the double-click speed of the mouse is not configured properly. A click on the Start button, then Control Panel and there Mouse opens the mouse properties where the double-click speed can be configured.

The slider needs to be moved closer to Slow in the configuration window to increase the click time between left-mouse clicks that are interpreted by Windows as a double-click.

Another option available is to switch from a double-click to open items to a single click. This can be changed in the folder options. A click on Tools > Folder Options in Windows Explorer opens the menu where the setting can be changed. Items are from that moment on opened with a single mouse click which prevents the renaming to trigger.

Those are the options available to prevent that a left-click on an item renames it in Windows Explorer. Have you found another solution? Let us know in the comments.

Namedate is Roman’s choice to tackle that problem. It can add date and time information to files and folders which makes it a very convenient solution for storing different program versions in the same directory structure.

Namedate is on the other hand a command line utility and as such needs to be run from the command line. It comes with dozens of parameters that can add and edit the filename of specified files and folders. The developer’s homepage lists all the available commands. The basic command is namedate filename which will add the day, month and year to the end of the specified filename.

Experienced users might want to add Namedate to the Windows Explorer right-click menu to add dates to files directly in Windows Explorer without having to open a command line to do so. Namedate is a 40 Kilobyte portable software program that can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with most Windows operating systems including Windows 7. (thanks Roman for the tip)

The options are divided into two tabs which makes it slightly more complicated to configure the renaming options.

The following options are available in the file renaming tabs:

• Hierarchical mode – Will recursively rename files in subfolders as well
• Add file index position to file names – Possible to add numbers, letters or both to file names.
• Notes – Option to add notes to the new file names.
• Parent folder name – Option to add the parent folder name to the file name
• File creation date – Option to add the file creation date to the file name.
• Original File Name – Option to add the original file name to the new file name.
• Modified original file names – replaces numbers with letters
• Word delimiter – specify the word delimiter

The second feature of Caterpixer is to copy files to another location. This can be done by clicking on the copy these files buttons in the right sidebar.

This will open a menu that looks similar to the file renaming menu. Here it is again possible to select from various options that can be activated by checking the corresponding check boxes.

• File index position – Option to add numbers, letters or both.
• Notes – Option to add notes to the file name
• Destination folder – Adding the destination folder name to the file name
• Parent folder – Adding the parent folder name to the file name
• File creation date- Adding the file creation date to the file name
• Original file names – Adding the original file names to the new files
• Word delimiter – Specifying the word delimiter
• Image quality – Changing the image quality

Caterpixer is an interesting option for users who want to rename and copy files that reside in root and subfolders. It lacks a few features that most renaming software programs offer. This includes file filters, regex operations, previews and backups. The program is currently only available for Microsoft Windows. The developer seems to have the intention to port the application to other operating systems.

Update: Caterpixer has been discontinued. An alternative is the batch file renamer Rename Master.

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.

The functionality however is making more than up for it. First of all, PFrank supports wildcards and regular expressions making it an excellent tool for both beginners and advanced users alike. You might now wildcards from your operating system, they are normally substituted with the char *, a search for all mp3 files of a folder would look like this for instance *.mp3.

Regular expressions on the other hand offer a wider variety of meta characters suitable for advanced file matching needs, it is for instance possible to exclude files with certain chars.

Many pre-defined renaming rules have already been added to PFrank and it is rarely the case that users have to use their own regular expressions for a renaming process. Some of the popular filters already included are the filter to remove all non alpha-numeric characters, to add music information at the beginning or end of a file, to add numbers or chars to a filename, to remove all numbers and to insert other file information like file properties or folder information.

If none of the default renaming templates suit your needs you can create your own. The homepage of PFrank contains additional information and links to tutorials that explain Regular Expressions in greater detail, definitely worth a visit if you ask me.

With Renamer NG it takes only a few seconds. You start by selecting the directory that contains all the files that you want to rename. They are listed in the main panel afterwards. Now click on Operations > Replace. This opens a new menu with five options: Replace, With, Match Case, Before and After.

• Replace defines the characters that you want to replace with different ones.
• With are of course those characters that you want them replaced with.
• Match Case defines if your input is case sensitive
• Before displays how the filename looks like before the changes
• After shows how it would look like after the changes, both in realtime

This is the basic process. Renamer NG offers much more though. You can add more than one dir and additionale files, filter files, insert characters, use regular expressions and add the current date and time to the filenames. I’m not able to list all of the options but you have to believe me that there are plenty of them.

I especially like it that it is easy to use so that everyone will be able to change filenames. Computer Geeks on the other hand will love the additional renaming options such as regular expressions.