#Mass rename files based on folder name how to
#Mass rename files based on folder name mp4

The motivation for this task was this: in Hugo we can write blog posts as files, like this: first-post.md second-post.md third-post.md The same process works to move files to another folder, because when you rename you rename the path of the file.

#Mass rename files based on folder name how to

In this blog post I’m going to explain how to rename a set of files. Figure 3: These are the renamed files.Find out how to rename a set of files using Node.js You can see the folder's contents after the script has run in Figure 3. Figure 2: This is what it looks like when I run the script. That way, I was able to merge the folders without worrying about duplicate file names.įigure 2 shows what the script looks like when it runs. This resulted in files named MS SQL Server 6, MS SQL Server 7 and so on.

When I ran the script against the second folder, I used 6 as the starting point number. The script produced files named MS SQL Server 1, MS SQL Server 2 and so on. I ran the script against the first folder and used 1 as the starting number. To give you a more concrete example, I have one SQL Server-related folder that contains five videos, and a second folder that contains nine videos. The script appends an integer to the end of the file name (beginning with the starting number that you specify), then increments the number for each subsequent file in the folder. That's why the script asks for a starting number. Since I would eventually like to merge some of these folders together (such as putting all of the SQL Server videos into one folder), I needed to come up with a renaming method that would not create any duplicate file names. If I designed the script to simply replace the old base file name (Title_) with a new file name (MS SQL Server), I would still have folders containing duplicate file names. That means I have multiple SQL Server folders, for example, each with duplicate titles. Remember when I said that I had ripped multiple training DVDs, and the contents of each one were stored in its own folder? Well, some of the training classes span multiple DVDs. But here is where the starting number comes into play. If it finds files with the specified extension, it renames them using the base file name you provided. With this information, the script checks the specified path for the existence of any file with the extension provided. The script starts out by prompting you to enter four pieces of information: the path where the files reside, the new base file name you want to use, the file extensions and a starting number (which I will explain in a second). Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Filter *.$Extension Write-Host 'The files have been renamed:' Rename-Item -Path $_.FullName -NewName $NewName Write-Host 'Old Name: ' $_.FullName ' New Name: ' $NewName $NewName = $Filename + ' ' + $StartingPoint + '.' + $Extension Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Filter *.$Extension | $StartingPoint = Read-Host 'Please enter a starting number' $Extension = Read-Host 'Please enter the file extension' $Filename = Read-Host 'Please enter new file name' Here is what the script looks like: $Path = Read-Host 'Please enter the file path' With a little bit of creativity, I was able to use PowerShell to greatly simplify the task.īut why stop there? Rather than just creating a throwaway script that would work for this one project and nothing else, I created a script that should work for nearly any bulk renaming task. Obviously, I wanted to give these files more descriptive names, but I really didn't want to manually rename hundreds of files by hand. Figure 1: This is what the file structure looked like when I got done ripping the DVDs. You can see an example of this in Figure 1.

#Mass rename files based on folder name mp4

MP4 files within that folder have names like Title_1, Title_2 and so on. In my case, for example, the tool I used to rip the DVDs placed each disc's contents into a separate folder.

The real trick is dealing with the aftermath once the ripping process is complete. The process of ripping a DVD is simple there are a countless utilities available that will allow you to do it. MPG so I could watch them on my computer anytime I wanted (I have the publisher's permission and am not violating any copyright laws). As such, I wanted to convert the videos to. At least some of the information on those DVDs is still relevant, but DVD drives are in short supply these days. A few years back, someone gave me a collection of IT training videos on DVD.