How to rename Windows files in bulk

Renaming files on windows you can do easily using the file explorer of windows.

What if you want to replace hundreds or even thousands of files??? Using a file explorer is certainly very tiring.

In the article How to rename Windows files in bulk this time, we will discuss the easiest way to replace multiple files step by step

Steps to rename Windows files in bulk

A. List all files in a folder

Open CMD from windows and navigate to the folder you want to rename the file using the command ” cd… . Then type the command ” dir /b ” to get a list of files in that folder.

rename files 01

Then select all the files in the list by dragging your mouse. Then copy the file name by right-clicking your mouse or by using ” Ctrl + C “.

rename files 02

B. Filename manipulation

To manipulate this file name, you can use Ms Excel, Google Spreadsheets, or others. For this tutorial, we use Ms Excel manipulation.

Copy all the file names in the previous step to Ms Excel in column “A” with ” Ctrl + V . And in column “B” fill in the new file name.

The syntax for renaming files in CMD

Ren OldFilenames NewFilenames

In the “C” column of Excel type the formula

="ren "& CHAR(34)&A2& CHAR(34)&" "& CHAR(34)&B2&CHAR(34)

And copy the formula down to the end.

C. Rename the file with CMD

Copy all column C from the previous step and then paste it on Command Prompt (CMD) by right click on CMD or “Ctrl+V”

The final result will look like the following.

rename files 06

It’s easy not to rename files on windows in bulk without the need to use an application to rename files.

Hope it is useful…

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