In this screenshot I’m replacing the date with “Harris-Halloween”.

Replace Text, which lets you find one string of text and replace it with another.

Pay particular attention to the preview in the lower left of the dialog, which shows you what the renamed files will look like.

In the resulting dialog, a pop-up menu lets you choose which action to take: replacing text, adding text, or performing more complex formatting. Once you’ve selected the files, Control-click one of the selected files, and choose Rename # Items, where # is the number of files selected. (Press Command-A if you want everything in the current folder drag a selection box around them select the first file in the series and then Shift-click the last file of the series or press Command and individually select files.) To get started, select the files you wish to rename in the Finder, using any of the standard methods. Similarly, automatically generated log files or still images from a webcam might also lend themselves to batch renaming. For instance, if you’re trying to reduce paper in your office (as Joe Kissell suggests in “ Take Control of Your Paperless Office”), being able to rename several PDF documents - such as scanned electric bills - at once is essential. In the past, you had to use a third-party utility, Automator, or some kind of shell script to rename a set of files quickly.īatch renaming has a number of uses. One of OS X 10.10 Yosemite’s most useful new features - batch renaming in the Finder - has gone largely overlooked in the weeks since its release.

#1648: iPhone passcode thefts, Center Cam improves webcam eye contact, APFS Uncertainty Principle.

#1649: More LastPass breach details and 1Password switch, macOS screen saver problem, tvOS 16.3.3 fixes Siri Remote bug.

#1650: Cloud storage changes for Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive quirky printing problem.

#1651: Dealing with leading zeroes in spreadsheet data, removing ad tracking from ckbk.

#1652: OS updates, DPReview shuttered, LucidLink cloud storage.

Batch rename tool