Rename multiple files in a directory in Python

Question

I m trying to rename some files in a directory using Python   Say I have a file called CHEESE CHEESE TYPE     and want to remove CHEESE  so my resulting filename would be CHEESE TYPE  I m trying to use the os path split but it s not working properly  I have also considered using string manipulations  but have not been successful with that either

User · Answer

import os import string def rename files      List all files in the directory file list   os listdir   Users tedfuller Desktop prank    print file list    Change current working directory and print out it s location working location   os chdir   Users tedfuller Desktop prank    working location   os getcwd   print working location    Rename all the files in that directory for file name in file list      os rename file name  file name translate str maketrans       string digits      rename files

User · Answer

I have the same issue  where I want to replace the white space  in any pdf file to a dash -  But the files were in multiple sub-directories  So  I had to use os walk    In your case for multiple sub-directories  it could be something like this   import os for dpath  dnames  fnames in os walk   path to directory        for f in fnames          os chdir dpath          if f startswith  cheese                 os rename f  f replace  cheese

User · Answer

This works for me   import os for afile in os listdir           filename  file extension   os path splitext afile      if not file extension      xyz           os rename afile  filename     abc

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I was originally looking for some GUI which would allow renaming using regular expressions and which had a preview of the result before applying changes   On Linux I have successfully used krename  on Windows Total Commander does renaming with regexes  but I found no decent free equivalent for OSX  so I ended up writing a python script which works recursively and by default only prints the new file names without making any changes  Add the  -w  switch to actually modify the file names      usr bin python   - - coding  utf-8 - -  import os import fnmatch import sys import shutil import re   def usage        print     Usage           s  lt work dir gt   lt search regex gt   lt replace regex gt   -w --write           By default no changes are made  add  -w  or  --write  as last arg to actually rename files         after you have previewed the result                 os path basename sys argv 0      def rename files directory  search pattern  replace pattern  write changes False        pattern old   re compile search pattern       for path  dirs  files in os walk os path abspath directory             for filename in fnmatch filter files                       if pattern old findall filename                   new name   pattern old sub replace pattern  filename                   filepath old   os path join path  filename                  filepath new   os path join path  new name                   if not filepath new                      print  Replacement regex    returns empty value  Skipping  format replace pattern                      continue                  print new name                  if write changes                      shutil move filepath old  filepath new              else                  print  Name      does not match search regex       format filename  search pattern   if   name         main         if len sys argv   lt  4          usage           sys exit -1       work dir   sys argv 1      search regex   sys argv 2      replace regex   sys argv 3      write changes    len sys argv   gt  4  and sys argv 4  lower   in   --write    -w       rename files work dir  search regex  replace regex  write changes    Example use case  I want to flip parts of a file name in the following manner  i e  move the bit m7-08 to the beginning of the file name     Before  Summary-building-mobile-apps-ionic-framework-angularjs-m7-08 mp4    After  m7-08 Summary-building-mobile-apps-ionic-framework-angularjs mp4   This will perform a dry run  and print the new file names without actually renaming any files   rename files regex py             - m  d -  d       2   1    This will do the actual renaming  you can use either -w or --write    rename files regex py             - m  d -  d       2   1  --write

User · Answer

Use os rename src  dst  to rename or move a file or a directory     ls cheese cheese type bar  cheese cheese type foo   python  gt  gt  gt  import os  gt  gt  gt  for filename in os listdir            if filename startswith  cheese            os rename filename  filename 7          gt  gt  gt     ls cheese type bar  cheese type foo

User · Answer

This command will remove the initial  CHEESE   string from all the files in the current directory  using renamer     renamer --find    CHEESE

User · Answer

What about this    import re p   re compile r     p split filename  1   where filename is CHEESE CHEESE TYPE

User · Answer

You can use os system function for simplicity and to invoke bash to accomplish the task   import os os system  mv old filename new filename

User · Answer

This sort of stuff is perfectly fitted for IPython  which has shell integration   In  1  files    ls In  2  for f in files             newname   process filename f             mv  f  newname   Note  to store this in a script  use the  ipy extension  and prefix all shell commands with     See also  http   ipython org ipython-doc stable interactive shell html

User · Answer

It seems that your problem is more in determining the new file name rather than the rename itself  for which you could use the os rename method    It is not clear from your question what the pattern is that you want to be renaming  There is nothing wrong with string manipulation  A regular expression may be what you need here

User · Answer

The following code should work  It takes every filename in the current directory  if the filename contains the pattern CHEESE CHEESE  then it is renamed  If not nothing is done to the filename   import os for fileName in os listdir           os rename fileName  fileName replace  CHEESE CHEESE     CHEESE

User · Answer

Assuming you are already in the directory  and that the  first 8 characters  from your comment hold true always    Although  CHEESE   is 7 characters      If so  change the 8 below to 7   from glob import glob from os import rename for fname in glob    prj        rename fname  fname 8

User · Answer

Here is a more general solution   This code can be used to remove any particular character or set of characters recursively from all filenames within a directory and replace them with any other character  set of characters or no character   import os  paths    os path join root  filename          for root     filenames in os walk  C  FolderName           for filename in filenames   for path in paths        the     in the example below will be replaced by the  -  in the filenames in the directory     newname   path replace       -       if newname    path          os rename path  newname

User · Answer

Try this   import os import shutil  for file in os listdir dirpath       newfile   os path join dirpath  file split     1  1       shutil move os path join dirpath file  newfile    I m assuming you don t want to remove the file extension  but you can just do the same split with periods

User · Answer

Here s a script based on your newest comment      usr bin env python from os import rename  listdir  badprefix    cheese   fnames   listdir       for fname in fnames      if fname startswith badprefix 2           rename fname  fname replace badprefix      1

[python] Rename multiple files in a directory in Python

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