Batch renaming of mp3 files. Bulk file renaming
To quickly find files and quickly navigate through them, it is not enough to put everything in the correct folders. It is equally important to give files names that are easy to read and meaningful. Fiddling with each of them separately is counterproductive. Therefore, there are methods for group renaming.
To work with a group of files, it is better to copy them to a separate folder. This will greatly simplify the process.
Using standard Windows tools
Changing file names
Let's consider the simplest case: we have the nth number of images with meaningless names.
Let's bring the names of these files to a visual form Picture (n), Where Picture will be the name, and n- serial number. This can be easily done directly in Explorer.
Select all the pictures that we want to rename. To do this quickly, use the key combination Ctrl + A. Then simply press F2 or right-click on the first file and select “Rename”. Enter the word as the name for the selected image Picture and press Enter.
Windows will automatically assign the same name to all subsequent files and assign all serial numbers.
If necessary, you can cancel mass renaming with the Ctrl + Z key combination.
If you want to rename a group of folders in Explorer, you can do it in the same way.
Changing file extensions
Let's say we have several text documents that, after double-clicking, open in Notepad. But we need them to be opened by the browser by default. To do this, you will have to change their extension from .txt to .html. These types of operations can be quickly performed using the command line.
Press the Windows + R keys and enter in the field that appears cmd and click OK - we see the command line window. Now we insert into it the path to the folder in which our files are located, immediately after the command CD: cd C:\Users\Max Volotsky\Desktop\Docs , and press Enter. Then we use a special command that will change their extensions: rename *.txt *.html, and press Enter again.
The original extension is indicated first in the command, the new one is indicated second. After entering the command, the system instantly makes changes.
To return everything to the way it was, you need to use the rename command again, swapping the extensions.
Using third party utilities
No built-in tools can match the functionality of special programs designed specifically for batch renaming. You can find many such free utilities on the Internet; just enter bulk file rename in the search.
We will look at renaming using the example of the Bulk Rename Utility program. With its help it is very convenient to change the names of folders and files, as well as the extensions of the latter.
When you first launch it, it may seem that the utility’s interface came straight from hell and, perhaps, there is some truth in this. But the user does not need to navigate through numerous tabs and menus: he gets access to all functions from one window.
So, let's say we have a group of audio files that we want to make look pleasing to the eye. In this case, the numbers and the lack of artist name are annoying.
We launch the application and use the built-in file manager to go to the folder we need. Next, use the already familiar Ctrl + A key combination to select all files. We need to remove the first 3 characters at the beginning of each file name and add the artist name at the very beginning. To do this, specify the necessary parameters in the Remove and Add panels, and then click Rename.
Now we’ll make sure that all extensions consist of lowercase characters: in the Extension panel, select the Lower option and click Rename.
As you can see, other panels are available in the program window. For example, Numbering allows you to number documents in different ways, and with Case you can change the case of characters in file names. Thanks to the New Name column in the built-in explorer, which shows the result of the rename before it's applied, you'll easily understand the rest of the Bulk Rename Utility.
The last operation with files and folders performed in the program can be easily undone using the Ctrl + Z key combination.
> How to rename MP3 files by ID3 tags?
Introduction.
ID3 tags are special fields with meta information recorded in the MP3 file. They usually contain information about the song: title, artist, album, release year, genre, comments, etc. Most modern players read these tags and can perform various operations with them (for example, sorting).
There are two main versions of tags: ID3v1 and ID3v2. The first version contained a rather meager amount of information, but the second is much more capacious and can contain an almost unlimited number of fields, including lyrics, album cover, etc.
If you have a lot of music with file names like track01.mp3, track02.mp3 and so on, then you would probably like to rename the MP3 files to something more readable and understandable. And this is very easy to do if the ID3 tags of the files contain all the necessary information. All you need is a good MP3 tag editor, such as mp3Tag Pro.
Step one: Download and install the program.
Download mp3Tag Pro to the selected folder and start the installation. Follow the installation instructions to complete the process.
Step two: Launch the program. Selecting an MP3 to rename.
Launch the ID3 tag editor. A program window will appear, with its left and upper parts resembling Windows Explorer. In the address bar, you can enter the path to the music folder, or you can use the “Browse” button and specify the directory. You can also navigate through folders by double-clicking on them in the list below the address bar or in the folder tree on the left.
Click on a file to select it. At the bottom of the screen we see that the necessary information is present in the ID3 tags, so we can simply select the files and start renaming.
Click "Select All Files" in the top bar (shown in the screenshot). All files in the current folder will be selected, but if you also want to select all files in subdirectories, then click “Scan subdirectories” next to the “Select all files” button.
When the desired MP3 music is highlighted, click "Rename".
Step three: Selecting a renaming format. Renaming MP3 files.
A new window will open:
In the upper left corner of the window we see the “Format” field, which specifies the template for renaming MP3 files. You can specify your own, or you can simply select one of the existing ones from the drop-down list.
The lower part of the window is the preview area. Here we see two columns: “Before” and “After”. The first shows the file names before renaming, and the second - after, using the current format. The second column updates automatically if you select or specify a new format. To rename MP3 files by ID3 tags, click on the "Rename" button at the bottom of the window.
In the screenshot above, we used the %A - %T format, which entered the names according to the "Artist - Song Title" scheme. We could use another format, for example:
%A - %L\%Y - %T is a more complex format. It not only renames files, but also creates a folder structure according to the scheme "Artist - Album\Year - Track Name". The value of each variable is listed to the right of the Format field.
Click "Rename". The MP3 renaming process will take a second:
So, now all our MP3 files have informative names and are arranged in appropriate folders. If several albums or artists were selected, each of them would be moved to its own folder. As you can see, there are almost an infinite number of options for forming names of MP3 files and folders from ID3 tags; you can combine and experiment.
If ID3 tags are not registered in your MP3 files, then you can get them from the Internet by selecting the tracks of one album and clicking on the “Generate” button.
In Windows, there are many ways to rename multiple files at once - through Explorer, the command line, or PowerShell. There is a solution for both graphical interface lovers and those who prefer to work with commands.Renaming through Explorer works quickly, but is not flexible enough. PowerShell has a lot of flexibility, but for a beginner this method can be intimidating. And if you need a powerful graphical tool, you will have to use a third-party program.
Conductor
Explorer has a rather unobvious way to quickly rename groups of files. First, collect all the necessary files in one folder. Switch to the “Table” view (Details) and sort the files in the required order - Explorer assigns numbers from the list starting from the top.
Select all the files you want to rename, right-click and select Rename. Enter a new name and press .
Explorer will append a number to this name for each file. A convenient way to bring all files to the same denominator, although not very flexible.
Command line
On the command line, you can use the rename or ren command to bulk rename files. You can use the wildcard * to denote multiple files at once.
The easiest way to open a command window in the desired folder is to hold down , right-click on the folder and select “Open command window here”.
Most often, command renaming is used to change the extension of an entire group of files - this cannot be done in Explorer. The command below, for example, turns all .html files into .txt:
ren *.html *.txt
The command itself is not very functional, but it can be used in complex scenarios.
PowerShell
PowerShell offers many more options for renaming files in a command environment. With PowerShell, you can pass the output of one command (cmdlet, as it's called here) to another command, just like in Linux and other UNIX-like systems.
The main commands are Dir to get a list of files in the current folder and Rename-Item to rename an object (in this case a file). Just pass the output of Dir to the Rename-Item command and you're done.
After starting PowerShell, use the cd command to navigate to the folder with the desired files. It is best to put all the files in one folder so as not to accidentally rename unnecessary ones.
Let's say we want to replace spaces in file names with underscores.
The following command lists the files in the current folder and passes it to the Rename-Item command, which replaces all spaces with underscores.
Dir | Rename-Item –NewName ( $_.name –replace “ “,”_” )
You can replace “ “ and “_” with other characters to rename the files differently.
You can learn more about using Rename-Item to perform more complex operations.
Third party utilities
If you need a powerful tool for bulk file renaming, but don’t want to mess around with the command line, you can use third-party utilities, for example. True, the interface of this application is quite confusing, since it provides a lot of capabilities that are usually only achievable using regular expressions and complex commands.
After installing the application, find and select the files to rename.
Cameras and video cameras save files with names that tell the user little about the photos and videos they captured. By default, file names are most often formed from a meaningless set of letters and numbers. File names like IMG2312 or DCIM1978765 among dozens of similar ones in the catalog do not give the user any information about the photo or recorded video. Another thing is the name of files like New_Year_2014_123 or Egypt_Pyramid_Cheops_456, it immediately becomes clear what information the files store. The free ReNamer program is used for batch renaming of files using rules, filters and other useful algorithms, and is an excellent tool for automating the file renaming process.
Changing file names in a list
The program's capabilities allow you to rename groups of files using a large number of functions designed for this operation. To generate new file names, the user is required to create rules for renaming. With their help, it is possible to remove a certain set of characters from a file name, insert text, replace characters, insert various meta tags into the file name, transliterate letters in file names, change the case of letters, insert sequential values (indexing), rename files by mask, use for renaming regular expressions and scripts in Pascal. In addition to files, the ReNamer utility can also rename folders. Before the final renaming of files, the program provides a preview of the result.
Screenshots
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Import from a text file, etc. The tag editor supports all popular audio formats: MP3, FLAC, APE, M4A, MP4, AAC, OGG and others.
On the other hand, information from tags can be used to rename audio files.
Let's see how you can rename MP3 files (other supported formats are renamed similarly). This function is similar to the function of getting tags from filenames.
Select files
Options in the rename window
All changes affect only the marked files. Next to each file name, on the left, there is a square. If there is a green checkmark in this box, the file is checked.
By default, all files are checked. You can change this by unchecking some files manually or using the buttons directly above the list, in the upper left corner.
Register is a drop-down list with several options:
They determine how information from ID3 tags will be processed. By default, no processing occurs, but you can choose to convert existing values to lowercase, uppercase, or other available options.
Another dropdown list:
With it, you can easily replace spaces with underscores "_", or vice versa. You can also remove spaces.
For example, there is a title "Some title". You can rename the file to "Some_name.mp3" by choosing to replace the spaces with "_". This may be useful for systems that do not like spaces in file names.
Remove bad characters. Some characters cannot be used in file names. If you try to rename a file in Windows and enter one of these characters (for example, ":"), the system will refuse to add this character and will provide details using a tooltip.
When creating filenames from tags, mp3Tag Pro can either replace such characters with spaces or remove them.
Remove leading and trailing spaces. If information in tags begins or ends with spaces, directly wrapping the information into filenames may have undesirable consequences. As a rule, the system is tolerant of spaces, but expects that the file name does not start with a space. Additionally, adding spaces from tags to spaces in the template can cause doubling and tripling of spaces, making filenames look worse.
Rename by right click
Individual files can be renamed using the context menu. Just right-click the file in the main tag editor window and select "Rename":
A small window will open, suggesting a new file name based on the "Artist - Title" template:
