Rename multiple files in a folder add a prefix Windows

Question

I d like to batch rename files in a folder  prefixing the folder s name into the new names  i e  files in C  house chores  will all be renamed house chores -  old name

User · Answer

Based on  ofer sheffer answer this command will mass rename and append the current date to the filename  ie  file txt  becomes  20180329 - file txt  for all files in the current folder  for  a in       do ren   a    date  -4 4  date  -7 2  date  -10 2  -  a

User · Answer

I was tearing my hair out because for some items  the renamed item would get renamed again  repeatedly  unless max file name length was reached    This was happening both for Get-ChildItem and piping the output of dir   I guess that the renamed files got picked up because of a change in the alphabetical ordering   I solved this problem in the following way   Get-ChildItem -Path   -OutVariable dirs foreach   i in  dirs    Rename-Item  i name    lt MY PREFIX gt    i name      This  locks  the results returned by Get-ChildItem in the variable  dirs and you can iterate over it without fear that ordering will change or other funny business will happen   Dave Gugg s tip for using -Exclude should also solve this problem  but this is a different approach  perhaps if the files being renamed already contain the pattern used in the prefix    Disclaimer  I m very much a PowerShell n00b

User · Answer

Free Software  Bulk Rename Utility  also works well  and is powerful for advanced tasks also   Download and installation takes a minute   See screenshots and tutorial on original website   --  I cannot provide step-by-step screenshots as the images will have to be released under Creative Commons License  and I do not own the screenshots of the software   Disclaimer  I am not associated with the said software company in any way  I liked the product for my own task  it serves OP s and similar requirements  thus recommending

User · Answer

This worked for me  first cd in the directory that you would like to change the filenames to and then run the following command   Get-ChildItem   rename-item -NewName    house chores-       Name

User · Answer

The problem with the two Powershell answers here is that the prefix can end up being duplicated since the script will potentially run over the file both before and after it has been renamed  depending on the directory being resorted as the renaming process runs   To get around this  simply use the -Exclude option   Get-ChildItem -Exclude  house chores-     rename-item -NewName    house chores-       Name     This will prevent the process from renaming any one file more than once

User · Answer

Based on  ofer sheffer answer  this is the CMD variant for adding an affix  this is not the question  but this page is still the  1 google result if you search affix   It is a bit different because of the extension   for  a in       do ren    a     na-affix  xa    You can change the  -affix  part

User · Answer

Option 1  Using Windows PowerShell  Open the windows menu   Type   PowerShell  and open the  Windows PowerShell  command window   Goto folder with desired files  e g  cd  C  house chores  Notice  address must incorporate quotes    if there are spaces involved   You can use  dir  to see all the files in the folder  Using     will pipeline the output of  dir  for the command that follows   Notes   dir  is an alias of  Get-ChildItem   See  wiki  cmdlets  One can provide further functionality  e g   dir -recurse  outputs all the files  folders and sub-folders   What if I only want a range of files    Instead of  dir    I can use   dir   where-object -filterscript      Name -ge  DSC 20   -and     Name -le  DSC 31        For batch-renaming with the directory name as a prefix   dir   Rename-Item -NewName     Directory Name     -        Name    Option 2  Using Command Prompt  In the folder press shift right-click   select  open command-window here   for  a in       do ren   a   prefix -  a    If there are a lot of files  it might be good to add an   echo off  command before this and an  echo on  command at the end

User · Answer

I know it s an old question but I learned alot from the various answers but came up with my own solution as a function  This should dynamically add the parent folder as a prefix to all files that matches a certain pattern but only if it does not have that prefix already   function Add-DirectoryPrefix  pattern          To debug  replace the Rename-Item with Select-Object     Get-ChildItem -Path     -Filter  pattern -Recurse            Where-Object     Name -notlike     Directory Name                    Rename-Item -NewName     Directory Name    -       Name            Select-Object -Property Directory Name   Name    NewName   Expression      Directory Name    -       Name       https   gist github com kmpm 4f94e46e569ae0a4e688581231fa9e00

[windows] Rename multiple files in a folder, add a prefix (Windows)

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