How to replace spaces in file names using a bash script

Question

Can anyone recommend a safe solution to recursively replace spaces with underscores in file and directory names starting from a given root directory  For example     tree    -- a dir      -- file with spaces txt  -- b dir      -- another file with spaces txt      -- yet another file with spaces pdf   becomes     tree    -- a dir      -- file with spaces txt  -- b dir      -- another file with spaces txt      -- yet another file with spaces pdf

User · Answer

Here s a  quite verbose  find -exec solution which writes  file already exists  warnings to stderr   function trspace        declare dir name bname dname newname replace char         -lt 1 -o    -gt 2    amp  amp    echo  usage  trspace dir char   return 1       dir    1      replace char    2 -       find    dir   -xdev -depth -name       t r n v f    -exec bash -c         for   i 1  i lt      i      do          name      i 1            dname    name               bname    name                newname    dname    bname     space      0             if    -e    newname       then             echo  Warning  file already exists    newname   1 gt  amp 2          else             mv    name      newname            fi       done        replace char             trspace rootdir

User · Answer

I use   for f in       do mv   f     f         done   Though it s not recursive  it s quite fast and simple  I m sure someone here could update it to be recursive   The   f       part utilizes bash s parameter expansion mechanism to replace a pattern within a parameter with supplied string   The relevant syntax is   parameter pattern string   See  https   www gnu org software bash manual html node Shell-Parameter-Expansion html or http   wiki bash-hackers org syntax pe

User · Answer

Here s a reasonably sized bash script solution     bin bash   IFS    n      for y in   ls  1        do          mv  1  echo  y   sed  s       g    1  echo   y    sed  s     g         done

User · Answer

find   -depth -name           while IFS  read -r f   do mv -i   f     dirname   f     basename   f  tr           done   failed to get it right at first  because I didn t think of directories

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bash 4 0     bin bash shopt -s globstar for file in         do      mv   file     file               done

User · Answer

This only finds files inside the current directory and renames them  I have this aliased    find    -name       -type f -d 1   perl -ple   file        file    s  s    g  rename      file

User · Answer

My solution to the problem is a bash script      bin bash directory  1 cd   directory  while      find    -regex           wc -l   -gt 0    do filename    find    -regex           head -n 1   mv   filename     echo   filename    sed  s         g    done   just put the directory name  on which you want to apply the script  as an argument after executing the script

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For those struggling through this using macOS  first install all the tools    brew install tree findutils rename   Then when needed to rename  make an alias for GNU find  gfind  as find  Then run the code of  Michel Krelin   alias find gfind  find   -depth -name           while IFS  read -r f   do mv -i   f     dirname   f     basename   f  tr           done

User · Answer

A find rename solution  rename is part of util-linux    You need to descend depth first  because a whitespace filename can be part of a whitespace directory   find  tmp  -depth -name       -execdir rename

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I found around this script  it may be interesting      IFS    n  for f in  find     do file   echo  f   tr   blank           -e  f    amp  amp      -e  file    amp  amp  mv   f   file done unset IFS

User · Answer

you can use this       find   -name         while read fname   do         new fname  echo  fname   tr                   if   -e  new fname           then                 echo  File  new fname already exists  Not replacing  fname          else                 echo  Creating new file  new fname to replace  fname                  mv   fname   new fname         fi done

User · Answer

Use rename  aka prename  which is a Perl script which may be on your system already  Do it in two steps   find -name       -type d   rename  s     g       do the directories first find -name       -type f   rename  s     g    Based on J  rgen s answer and able to handle multiple layers of files and directories in a single bound using the  Revision 1 5  1998 12 18 16 16 31  rmb1  version of  usr bin rename  a Perl script    find  tmp  -depth -name       -execdir rename  s     g

User · Answer

I just make one for my own purpose  You may can use it as reference      bin bash cd  vzwhome c0cheh1 dev source UB 14 8 for file in   do     echo  file     cd   vzwhome c0cheh1 dev source UB 14 8  file Configuration  file      echo     gt   pwd       for subfile in       do   -d   subfile     amp  amp    mv   subfile     echo  subfile   sed -e  s     g       done     ls     cd  vzwhome c0cheh1 dev source UB 14 8 done

User · Answer

In macOS   Just like the chosen answer   brew install rename     cd  lt your dir gt  find   -name       -type d   rename  s     g       do the directories first find   -name       -type f   rename  s     g

User · Answer

For files in folder named  files   for i in  IFS    find  files -name       do    echo  i done  gt   tmp list   while read line do    mv   line   echo  line   sed  s     g   done  lt   tmp list  rm  tmp list

User · Answer

Recursive version of Naidim s Answers   find   -name         awk    print length   0      sort -nr -s   cut -d    -f2-   while read f  do base   basename   f    newbase    base         mv    dirname   f     basename   f       dirname   f    newbase   done

User · Answer

you can use detox by Doug Harple  detox -r  lt folder gt

User · Answer

This one does a little bit more  I use it to rename my downloaded torrents  no special characters  non-ASCII   spaces  multiple dots  etc        usr bin perl   amp rena  find   -type d     amp rena  find   -type f     sub rena         elems           t split   n   elems       for  e   t                e        remove    of find     s                non ascii transliterate     tr   200- 377          tr   000- 40            special characters we do not want in paths     s    -                              g        multiple dots except for extension     while                          s                    only one   consecutive     s      g      next if     eq  e   or         eq  e       print   e - gt     n       rename   e

[linux] How to replace spaces in file names using a bash script

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