How to rename files in Windows CMD (command prompt)

Question

Renaming files in Windows explorer is easy but when you need to rename many files it can become quite tedious. A command prompt (terminal) makes it easier.

Unthrone

The usage of shareware file manager Total Commander makes it very easy to rename lots of files (or folders) in a folder or a folder tree or spread over all drives very easy without any coding skills and being nevertheless extremely powerful with its built-in awesome Multi-rename tool. – Sold

@Sold Thanks for the suggestion, that sounds like a nice tool. Personally, i prefer using command line (and i dont like installing 3rd party tools all the time :) – Unthrone

Answer 1

In order to rename any file you need to cd into your folder directory and then just type one of these: ex,

• Desktop> ren "My file" "Your file"
• Desktop> rename "hello.txt" "goodbye.txt"
• Desktop> ren "why.txt" "because.docx"

and click the Enter button

Shackle

Answer 2

Renaming 1 file in cmd is very easy:
In this example we have a sample1.txt and we want to change its name to sample2.txt:

    in command prompt type:
    c:\temp> ren sample1.txt sample2.txt [enter]

Let's say the filename is sample1-some-unwanted-text-1234.txt and we want to change it to sample1.txt:

    in command prompt, type:
    c:\temp> ren sample1-some-unwanted-text-1234.txt sample1.txt

Renaming 1 file by replacing multiple unwanted characters using a star:
Let's say the filename is sample1-some-unwanted-text-1234.txt and we want to change it to sample1.txt without having to type the whole filename:

    in command prompt:
    c:\temp> ren sample1*.txt sample1.txt

This * basically means any characters inbetween sample1 and .txt will be replaced.

Renaming multiple files with similar names
If you want to rename multiple files, i.e. sample1 2020-08-01.txt, sample2 2020-08-05.txt, sample3 2020-08-10.txt,sample4 2020-08-13.txt, you want to keep the first 7 characters you want to get rid of the dates:

    in command prompt:
    c:\temp> ren sample?*.txt sample?.txt

In this example, you want to keep the word sample and the number X (where X can be any number or character). Using a ? will leave the number in place and * instructs the rename-command to replace any characters in between sampleX and .txt

Warning: It happens very quickly that a command prompt rename operation renames too many files and you can't undo it. So, when renaming multiple files it is advisable to make a copy of all the files you want to rename, put them in a temp folder, then run your rename commands in the temp folder, and when you're certain that it works, go back and rename the original files.

Unthrone

How can this be linked to a question about renaming files with spaces in the filename? You have not used the correct syntax, which is REN "[drive:][path]filename1" "filename2", you should use doublequotes at any time where you cannot guarantee that [path]filename1 and/or filename2 does not contain a space, or any other poisonous character. For robustness/safety, always enclose paths/filenames within doublequotes. – Debility

ok i removed the link to the other question. yeah i agree, using quotes is a good idea but you dont need to specify the [drive][path] if you want to simply rename a file in the current folder. – Unthrone

ren command can handle very simple cases. Better throw cmd away and use powershell which allows you to do arbitrary renaming easily – Jamesy

@Jamesy i totally agree, powershell is much more powerful, but I sometimes use cmd for simple stuff and i think many people still use cmd so i hope this post will help somebody – Unthrone

Answer 3

for %f in (*) do (
    if %~z1 gtr 0 (
        set "content="
        for /f "delims=" %a in (%f) do set "content=!content!%a"
        set "content=!content:oldword=newword!"
        echo !content! > %f
    )
)

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