Are you only interested in using Powershell? There’s a FOSS utility called PowerRename (part of PowerToys) which uses find/replace and RegEx to let you batch rename a group of files: MS Learn - PowerRename
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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Yeah it's a pretty simple task and I'm interested in getting more familiar with PS.
If the CSV file contains both the current names and the new names, this should work if you use the first line for column labels (I'm using OldName and NewName in this example):
Import-CSV $pathToCSV | ForEach-Object { Rename-Item $_.OldName $_.NewName }
If you just have a list of new names as a text file where the first line of the file is the new name for the first file (by name, sorted alphabetically), this should work:
$files = Get-ChildItem -File *.pdf | Sort-Object -Property Name #I think the output of Get-ChildItem is already sorted by name, but I'm not sure
$newNames = Get-Content $pathToTXT
if ($files.Count -ne $newNames.Count) {
Write-Error "The number of PDF files to be renamed does not match the number of new names"
exit
}
0..($files.Count - 1) | ForEach-Object { Rename-Item $files[$_] $newNames[$_] }
Thanks but PS closes so I assume it ran into an error. I'm not sure why because there is the same number of files and list items. I doublechecked to make sure.
I have no idea why this wouldn't work on your machine - I've tested it on mine and it works fine. So maybe you have overlooked some small things:
-
If there are any other PDFs in the directory that you don't want to rename, then the list of files is longer than the list of names.
-
If the PS window closes completely, you might have typed it into the terminal instead of running it as a script - then the problem might just be that you closed the if block too early, so PS immediately executes the
exitcommand. -
If your list of new names contains a column label like in a one-column CSV, then it has one more line than there are files.
Perhaps my directions were unclear. The Excel/CSV file has the new names and I want to use them to replace the default names for the PDF files.
There's no point in having a CSV for just a single column, just make it a simple text file and it'll simplify the code a bit. So assuming you have a file called names.txt, here's a one-liner that can do the trick:
$names = cat "\path\to\names.txt"; $i=0; dir | % { ren $_ "$($names[$i])"; $i++ }
As long as the order in your text file matches the order shown by dir, you shouldn't have any issues. Maybe do a dry run with a -WhatIf to the ren first to see how the files are being renamed, before you do the actual rename. :)
Thanks but I'm getting a 'Cannot create a file when that file already exists.' error. I checked the path so I am certain it is correct.
That means there's a duplicate entry, check the full error message for the file name. You can also use the -Verbose switch to see what's going on.
It manages to output one file titled 'name; 0++'
Ah, I misplaced a quote in my code, I've update the post - try version.
So it sort of worked in that it outputed a bunch of files with the names but with blank icons and not the Adobe icons. Powershell also had an error for each list item that looked like the following:
Rename-Item : Cannot bind argument to parameter 'NewName' because it is an empty string.
At line:1 char:86
+ ... ads\individuals.txt"; $i=0; dir | % { ren $_ "$($names[$i])"; $i++ }
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:) [Rename-Item], ParameterBindingValidationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationErrorEmptyStringNotAllowed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Rena
meItemCommand
Maybe the command needs '.pdf' somewhere?
Well yeah, you need the full name of the file. PowerShell will not automatically asumme the extension of a file.
Also that empty string error means there's a blank line somewhere in your input list, so you'll need to get rid of that.
Just figured it out! Added '.pdf' in the second half of the command.
$names = cat "\path\to\names.txt"; $i=0; dir | % { ren $_ "$($names[$i]).pdf"; $i++ }
Thanks for all your help!
Also I had someone help with a similar task of duplicating a Word file that is renamed from a list of names found in a csv file. What would be the code when a txt file is used?
Import-csv ‘.\individuals.csv’ | foreach-object {
$newname = ‘2’ + $_.name + '.docx’
Copy-item '.\_2023 Summary Page.docx' $newname
}
Not sure about the word template thing and I know it's not power shell, but bulk rename utility is basically everything you could want for renaming things plus it previews the change before you execute it.
I got rid of that task. Now it's just Task #1