Following is an explained step by step process to rename multiple files (mostly) any way you want using bash with examples
Note: Anything after a hash/pound symbol (#) in a line in the examples is a comment and can be ignored without any effect on the process. It is there just to explain things.
Graphical tools are great. Use them if they do what you want. But they are limited by their graphical interfaces. There are things that they cannot do. That’s where bash comes in for help. Using bash, you can easily rename/move files exactly the way you want.
Selecting Files
You can select files with for loop and wildcards/patterns (*,?,[],{}) or full filenames
For example, to select files a.png, 2.mp4, empty file.txt, and test.sh, the following for loop could be used
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for file in a.png 2.mp4 'empty file.txt' test.sh; do
# do something with files
done
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note the apostrophe ' before and after filename of empty file.txt. It is important for files that contain spaces in their name
to select all files with the extension .jpeg, following for loop could be used
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for file in *.jpeg; do
# do something with files
done
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to select all files that contain the word abc
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for file in *abc*; do
# do something with files
done
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to select all files that start with the word abc
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for file in abc*; do
# do something with files
done
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to select all video files regardless of the extension you could use file command along with a for loop
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for file in *; do
if [[ $(file -b --mime-type -- "$file") = video/* ]]; then
# do something with videos
fi
done
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Selecting Files in Specific Order
Sometimes, we want to rename files in a specific order because we want them to have names like file1.txt, file2.txt, file3.txt, etc.
We can do that by using a while loop along with the ls command instead of a simple for loop. In this way, we could use the sorting functionality that ls command has.
For example, to select all files with .jpeg extension, following while loop could be used
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while read file; do
# do something with files
done <<< $(ls -1 *.jpeg)
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Note the -1 flag that is provided to the ls command. It is very important.
to select all files with .jpeg extension but in the order that newest file is selected first
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while read file; do
# do something with files
done <<< $(ls -1 --time *.jpeg)
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to select all files with .jpeg extension but in the order that oldest file is selected first
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while read file; do
# do something with files
done <<< $(ls -1 --time --reverse *.jpeg)
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to select all files with .jpeg extension but in the order that largest file is selected first
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while read file; do
# do something with files
done <<< $(ls -1 -S *.jpeg)
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Note: Run the command ls --help or man ls in terminal to get more information on the ls command and its sorting abilities.
Breaking Down Filenames
To make it easier to rename files, we could break down its path to the path of its folder/directory, its basename and its extension
For example if we have a file wallpaper.png in our home directory /home/user, we want to be able to see that its full path is /home/user/wallpaper.png and separate it into directory=/home/user, basename=wallpaper, and extension=png; so that we can rename it any way we want very easily
We can do that with following bash code (assuming we have file=wallpaper.png while we are in /home/user)
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file="$(realpath -s -- "$file")" # expands value of $file from wallpaper.png to /home/user/wallpaper.png
directory="${file%/*}" # get directory path (/home/user)
basename="${file##*/}" # get basename (wallpaper.png)
basename="${basename%.*}" # remove extension from basename (wallpaper)
extension="${file##*.}" # get extension (png)
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Renaming/Moving Files
Renaming Files
Now since we have a file’s directory path, its basename and extension, we can easily rename it with mv -- command
For example, add the word -new to the end of filename but before the extension (wallpaper.png becomes wallpaper-new.png)
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old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/${basename}-new.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
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or replace the word paper with PAPER in filename (wallpaper.png becomes wallPAPER.png)
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old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/${basename/paper/PAPER}.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
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or remove the word paper in filename (wallpaper.png becomes wall.png)
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old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/${basename/paper/}.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
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Moving Files
The mv -- command also can move files.
For example, to move wallpaper.png from /home/user to /home/user/Pictures, following code can be used
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old_name="$file"
new_name="/home/user/Pictures/${basename}.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
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Complete Examples
1: Change extension of all files with extension .jpeg in ~/Pictures folder to .jpg extension
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# Select all files in ~/Pictures with .jpeg extension
for file in ~/Pictures/*.jpeg; do
# Break down filenames
file="$(realpath -s -- "$file")"
directory="${file%/*}"
basename="${file##*/}"
basename="${basename%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"
# Rename files
old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/${basename}.jpg"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
done
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2: Add the word ScreenRecording- before filename of each video in ~/Videos/Recordings
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# Select all Videos in ~/Videos/Recordings
for file in ~/Videos/Recordings/*; do
if [[ $( file -b --mime-type -- "$file") = video/* ]]; then
# Break down filenames
file="$(realpath -s -- "$file")"
directory="${file%/*}"
basename="${file##*/}"
basename="${basename%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"
# Rename files
old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/ScreenRecording-${basename}.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
fi
done
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3: You have a lot of files in ~/test-folder with names like asdl3m2.jpg, lsdkte3.png, sdgi3l.dat, etc. and you want all pictures to have names like picture-1.png, picture-2.jpg, etc. while keeping all other files untouched
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# Set a starting value for the number in filenames
number=1
# Select all Pictures in ~/test-folder
for file in ~/test-folder/*; do
if [[ $( file -b --mime-type -- "$file") = image/* ]]; then
# Break down filenames
file="$(realpath -s -- "$file")"
directory="${file%/*}"
basename="${file##*/}"
basename="${basename%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"
# Rename files
old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/picture-${number}.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
# Increase value of number by 1 for each image file
((number++))
fi
done
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4: Same problem as Example #3, but you want the filenames to be like picture-01.png, picture-02.jpg, … picture-10.png, etc. instead of simple picture-1.png, picture-2.jpg, … picture-10.png
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# Set a starting value for the number in filenames
number=1
# Select all Pictures in ~/test-folder
for file in ~/test-folder/*; do
if [[ $( file -b --mime-type -- "$file") = image/* ]]; then
# Break down filenames
file="$(realpath -s -- "$file")"
directory="${file%/*}"
basename="${file##*/}"
basename="${basename%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"
# Format number
formatted_number=$(printf %02d $number)
# Rename files
old_name="$file"
new_name="${directory}/picture-${formatted_number}.${extension}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
# Increase value of number by 1 for each image file
((number++))
fi
done
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Note the use use of printf command. You can modify it to your liking. You just have to replace 2 in %02d with any number you like and the result would be that many digits long.
5: You have over 1000 files in ~/Recovered and all the files have useless names and no extension e.g aldidladb49sz9e, ldi39-ssi3, etc. You want files to move to their respective folders and have names like video-001.mp4, video-002.mkv for videos and names like image-001.png, image-002.jpg for images, etc. The following code is how you do it in bash
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# declare number as named/associative array
# this will be useful for keeping different number for different types of files
declare -A number
# Select all Pictures in ~/test-folder
for file in ~/Recovered/*; do
# Get File type
mime_type=$( file -b --mime-type -- "$file") # get full type e.g. image/png, video/x-matroska, etc.
main_type=${mime_type%/*} # get main type e.g. video, image, text, etc.
sub_type=${mime_type#*/} # get sub type e.g. mp4, png, etc.
sub_type=${sub_type#x-} # remove 'x-' from subtype i.e. x-matroska -> matroska
[ $sub_type = matroska ] && sub_type=mkv # if subtype=matroska then change it to sub_type=mkv
# Increase value of number by 1 for current type
((number[$main_type]++))
# Break down filenames
file="$(realpath -s -- "$file")"
directory="${file%/*}"
basename="${file##*/}"
basename="${basename%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"
# Format current file-type's number
formatted_number=$(printf %03d ${number[$main_type]})
# The new folder/directory where file should be moved to
new_directory="${directory}/${main_type}"
# Create a folder for current filetype if does not exist already
mkdir -p "$new_directory"
# Rename/Move files
old_name="$file"
new_name="${new_directory}/${main_type}-${formatted_number}.${sub_type}"
mv -- "$old_name" "$new_name"
done
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I hope this helped you! Good Luck.
