You can easily change the name of any file or folder on a Windows PC by right clicking it and selecting the ‘Rename’ option. Another quick method is to select the file or folder and press the F2 key to edit its name. However, what if you need to rename multiple files at once? Imagine working in an office environment where you suddenly receive a large number of poorly named Word or Excel documents. Renaming each file one by one can be time consuming and frustrating, especially if the files need to follow a specific sequence or be organized based on their creation date.
The good news is that Windows provides a simple built in method to bulk rename files in just a few seconds. You do not need any advanced technical skills to do this. In this article, we will show you how to bulk rename files using Windows default features. We will also explain how to perform bulk renaming more efficiently using a reliable third-party application.
Bulk Rename Files Using Default Windows Feature
This is a simple trick, and we will use an example to explain it clearly. Suppose we have a folder containing several .txt files that are not named properly. Our goal is to rename all of these files using a single common name.
- Open your folder which contains a bunch of files. As you can see in the screenshot below, we have 10 files named ‘unknown file’.
- This is an example, so you see all the dates in the ‘Date modified’ column are same. In reality, the files might have been created and modified in different dates. When you want to sequentially name the files based on the modification date, first ensure to click on the date modified and sort the files based on that column.
- Select all of them, right-click on any of the files and select ‘Rename’ option from the context menu.
- Now, type whatever the name you want for those files and press enter. In our example, we change the names to ‘original file’.
- Windows will automatically rename all those files with the names like ‘original file(1)’, ‘original file(2)’, etc.
Bulk Rename Files With a Third-Party App
Renamer is a free app that contains lot of options for changing file names in Windows. It allows you to insert, delete, remove, replace words / character in prefix / suffix or in a specific position. Here we’ll explain with the ‘Replace’ option.
- Download this app from the developer’s site and install it on your PC.
- Open Renamer app and from the top menu, you’ll see ‘add folders’ button, click on that and add a folder that contains your files. If you only have few files, simply drag them and drop on the bottom section.
- Now, click on ‘Add’ button to create a new naming rule.
- Select ‘Replace’ option from the left-side menu.
- Type the old name which you want to replace or change in ‘Find’ box.
- Type the new file name in ‘Replace’ box.
- Click on ‘Add rule’ button.
- You’ll see the ‘New Name’ column will turn into red color but right now it’s not permanently changed.
- You need to click on ‘Rename’ button from the top to make it a permanent change.
Final Words
If you want to bulk rename the files using a complicated logic, then you need a third-party app like Renamer. Otherwise, simple renaming feature in Windows is sufficient for changing the file names sequentially.
