Having hundreds of Gigabytes of data is not unheard of for a lot of people these days. The problem comes with the sheer amount of different places where you might have got them. From smart phones and digital cameras, to downloading files off the internet, ripping music and video, or simply receiving files from friends. With all this variation in sources, the inevitable consequence is there will most likely be a huge variation in the way everything is organised and named.
Whether it’s working with your collections of music, videos, archives or pictures, the chances are you have likely spent far too much time manually renaming hundreds or thousands of files. Removing erroneous numbers or replacing or adding strings to rename files is often required to make everything more readable. To make things far easier and save a lot of time, what you need is a way to rename multiple files and folders at once.
That’s where a batch renaming utility comes in handy and one such program is Rename Master. While aiming to be relatively easy to use, it also has some powerful functions. Apart from the more standard types of rename functions like add, remove, or replacing selected parts of the filename, Rename Master also supports renaming via the files properties, and also the meta tag or exif information found in most MP3 or JPEG files.
There are plenty of other features of note including; a built in Explorer type folder browser to locate files for renaming, a thumbnail preview window, auto previewing so you can see what the names will look like before renaming, and an undo function if you do get it wrong.
The Rename Master download contains both a portable executable and an installer if you wish to keep it on your system. When it is first run, the main window may seem a bit complicated, but the program can be made as easy or advanced as you require and performing even complex renames can be done with a couple of clicks of the mouse. Simply locate and select the files using the upper window, path bar, filter and pop out folder browser.
As you can see, there are twelve main renaming functions available. All of these have a set of sub functions when you click on them. This is where the programs power lies, and affects things like which part of the filenames are to be altered and what the replacement strings will be.
As a simple example, these next steps will perform a common task of converting a folder full of generically named photos into something a bit easier to identify. Clicking on ’06 : [Replace Name/Phrase]’ will bring up a small window, and select Replace the ‘Entire Name’ from the dropdown‘. The option is there to replace the name, extension or a part of the name.
Clicking the small play type button brings up a menu containing a number of file, date and tag variables which can be inserted into the filename. Here I select ‘Renumbering’ > ‘Counter’, manually enter the text ‘ Holiday ‘ and then ‘File Date’ > ‘Date Modified Year’. The potential result can then be seen in the ‘New Name’ column of the file display.
If the new name result is satisfactory, then press the ‘Rename’ button. This example is obviously quite a basic one and much more advanced operations can be carried out by using several of the renaming scripts at once. Longer and more frequently used scripts can be saved for future use with the ‘File’ > ‘Save Script’ option. The Online Help is definitely worth a read to explore and understand what the program is capable of.
Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7