I need a file renamer

[npriess]

Hi,

I need an app which can rename a bunch of files:
I already tried 'A better finder rename 8' but couldn't find the right option.

I have a lot of files named 01, 02, 03, 04 Artist_Song_album

How can I remove the numbers and the _'s? 🙂

 

[miles01110]

Name Mangler.

 

[swiftaw]

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010509130450691

 

[yetanotherdave]

I use automator.

 

[John Doe 57]

Awesome App:
http://renamer4mac.com/index.html

 

[miles01110]

Automator doesn't have nearly the amount of options that Name Mangler does, and Renamer4Mac isn't free and also doesn't do as good a job.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Automator doesn't have nearly the amount of options that Name Mangler does, and Renamer4Mac isn't free and also doesn't do as good a job.

jumping in here as I have similar req, unfortunately name mangler doesnt seem to have a random rename - I dont mind if the renamed files have consecutive names say File00001, File00002, etc, as long as its random which files get assigned those in the first place, eg fileA->File00007, FileB->File00002 , FileC->File00042 etc....

There are some PC apps that will do this and I'm thinking I may have to do it that way.

 

[miles01110]

What's the difference between having them be "random" and renaming them in order (yes, I know the definition of random vs. ordered, but why is it important in your case)? Try Automator- I can't tell how the "Get Finder Items" sorts the files.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

What's the difference between having them be "random" and renaming them in order (yes, I know the definition of random vs. ordered, but why is it important in your case)? Try Automator- I can't tell how the "Get Finder Items" sorts the files.

This is a common requirement, its for a photo frame. Many digital photo frames don't have a random slide show feature, they simply show the pictures in filename order. Mine does have random order, but only up to 1,500 files, after that it shows in name order. I am approaching the 1,500 mark. Also, the random function isnt that great anyway, its shows some pictures far more often that you'd expect, whereas what I'd like is it to show each picture just once in a random order before restarting.

An obvious way around this is to randomly rename the files so that when they are shown in name order by the frame, its random because the original alphabetical order has been changed to another random one.

I haven't used automator but looking at it on the Apple web site it doesn't seem to have a randomise ability because its only doing things you would do manually.

I am surprised this capability doesn't exist on Mac so I am visualizing a script that would do this rename and may have a go at learning scripting on Mac. Or perhaps use one of several windows apps that can do this and put the SD card in a reader on PC and do it that way.

 

[miles01110]

This is a common requirement, its for a photo frame.

Ah.

I haven't used automator but looking at it on the Apple web site it doesn't seem to have a randomise ability because its only doing things you would do manually.

Here's a screen shot of what I see when I drag a bunch of pictures into Automator. Does it look like they're in any sort of order to you?

 

[ID_Field_Blank]

Hey, I'm not sure if this would work but have you tried using automator to sort them into one long list. Then getting it to get all the files ending in 1 and renaming those 1-100 (or however many ther are), then get all the files with a 2 at the end and rename those 101-200 (or however many there are) and repeating all the way up to 0?
This would produce a semi random list, but could be repeatd to make it more random.

I think to do this you could use:
1. get finder items
2. rename finder items and end in consecutive numbers
3. find finder items and navigate to the file, select name ending in (one in this case)
4. rename finder itesm
5. repeat steps 3 and 4 until you've chosen the end number to be everything from 2 through 0.


Just a thought.

 

[angelwatt]

You could rename with random by using a bash script. I'm not at a Mac (or Linux) to try it though so be sure to test it on a test directory of images.

#!/bin/bash

# Get all jpg files
files = $(ls *.jpg)
# Loop through files
for file in $files
do
  # assign random name
  mv $file $RANDOM.jpg
done

Just copy and paste the above into a text file and give it a name such as "image_rename_random" and it doesn't need an extension. Save the file inside the image directory you're wanting to effect. Open Terminal, use the cd command to go to the directory where you saved the script. You may need to give the script execution permissions first that is easily done with the following command.

chmod u+x image_rename_random

Then simply enter in,

./image_rename_random

and it'll run the script hopefully. The random here should work up to about 32,000. Something similar to this is likely possible with AppleScript as well.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Ah.


Here's a screen shot of what I see when I drag a bunch of pictures into Automator. Does it look like they're in any sort of order to you?

Its hard to tell, they could be in date/time order (they all have identical dates), are they?

Hey, I'm not sure if this would work but have you tried using automator to sort them into one long list. Then getting it to get all the files ending in 1 and renaming those 1-100 (or however many ther are), then get all the files with a 2 at the end and rename those 101-200 (or however many there are) and repeating all the way up to 0?
This would produce a semi random list, but could be repeatd to make it more random.

I think to do this you could use:
1. get finder items
2. rename finder items and end in consecutive numbers
3. find finder items and navigate to the file, select name ending in (one in this case)
4. rename finder itesm
5. repeat steps 3 and 4 until you've chosen the end number to be everything from 2 through 0.


Just a thought.

Thanks I can see that would work but is a lot more work than I was hoping for.

You could rename with random by using a bash script. I'm not at a Mac (or Linux) to try it though so be sure to test it on a test directory of images.

#!/bin/bash

# Get all jpg files
files = $(ls *.jpg)
# Loop through files
for file in $files
do
  # assign random name
  mv $file $RANDOM.jpg
done

Just copy and paste the above into a text file and give it a name such as "image_rename_random" and it doesn't need an extension. Save the file inside the image directory you're wanting to effect. Open Terminal, use the cd command to go to the directory where you saved the script. You may need to give the script execution permissions first that is easily done with the following command.

chmod u+x image_rename_random

Then simply enter in,

./image_rename_random

and it'll run the script hopefully. The random here should work up to about 32,000. Something similar to this is likely possible with AppleScript as well.

Thanks, someone published something very similar to that in another thread and I was looking at modifying it so it would pick all the files out of a a series of nested folders (the script I had didn't do that) and also (presumably) check to see if that random name exists first in case of a duplicate. Or is that unlikely enough not to worry about? ... If I have say 2,000-3,000 names I think the odds are quite high there will be a duplicate - probably close to a certainty I'd guess.

Its annoying when there are apps that do this at the drop of a hat on windows ..... grrrr .... I'd like to do it on Mac but it may be easier just to stick the SD card in a reader and put it in my PC :-(

I'll give one of these scripts a go - what is the command that would list all the files underneath a given folder and within all nested folders? having a quick google it would seem to be ls -R * ? UPDATE Quicker to try it, I see it is 🙂

 

[i.shaun]

renamer4mac isn't free?

What the heck, I use it for free. I've paid for a few apps like keyboard maestro, snapz pro x (but i won't pay them for an update), app zapper, steel, virtual dub, but I have not paid for renamer4mac.


unless of course they made a newer version with more features.

 

[angelwatt]

renamer4mac isn't free?

I believe, if memory serves, that it use to be free, but has since been enhanced and deemed worthy a price tag. I think I use to use it when it was free as well, but now use Name Mangler in its place.

Thanks, someone published something very similar to that in another thread and I was looking at modifying it so it would pick all the files out of a a series of nested folders (the script I had didn't do that) and also (presumably) check to see if that random name exists first in case of a duplicate. Or is that unlikely enough not to worry about? ... If I have say 2,000-3,000 names I think the odds are quite high there will be a duplicate - probably close to a certainty I'd guess.

That was something I wanted to test. The documentation I read for $RANDOM said it would give a different number for each instantiation, but I don't know how reliable that may be.

 

[johnny-L]

i use a finder script for adding prefixes/suffixes. only downside is adding suffixes can go after the file extention, and you cant change the whole file name. but it works really well for what i need