14 DAY TRIAL // Renaming lots of files by hand is an arduous process that should not be attempted with any number of files greater than 3. That having been said, it is a necessity to have a competent renaming tool that you can use when you need to tear through a few hundred files that need a name change. Unfortunately the Finder offers no assistance, and is poorly suited for such tasks. So, what do you do when you need to rename several hundred photos from your most recent trip? You turn to a program such as R-Name.
What it does R-Name is a small program that lets you batch-modify the names of many files in one go, often saving you from having to do so by hand.
While there are many programs of this kind out there, and it might seem like they all do the same thing, it is not exactly true. R-Name is better suited towards making changes in existing file names, and is rather poorly suited to generating totally new names.
That is to say, if you wanted to take a bunch of photos and rename them all to a name that follows the following rule, "[text][date picture was taken][counter].extension", you would be better off using a different renaming program such as Name those Files!. R-Name is better suited for trimming characters from the beginning and end of file names, replacing parts from the middle and changing the case of names.
Find and replace This is perhaps the most useful tool in the program, because of its implementation. It will search for the given character string in the file name and replace it with another. If that other is blank, it will simply remove the sought after string.
So far, that is pretty standard procedure for a find and replace tool; however, the great thing about it is how you can specify if you want this to happen always, or only once. If you set it to only do that once, after finding a match in any file name and replacing it, it will stop looking in that filename and move on to the next. This is great for making replacements in filenames where the same string can be found several times, or trimming number padding, and a great deal of many other things.
Furthermore, the program lets you use PERL regular expressions when renaming files, which, if you know what you are doing, gives the program a lot more flexibility and power.
Counter Every rename tool has a counter, and R-Name is no different. The counter has pretty much all the options you need, from initial number, to step value and the increment value. If you wish, you can add a prefix and suffix which is basically a character string that you can slap on before and after the counter.
The sort dropdown is the real gem of this function. It has the usual sorting methods of ascending and descending based on name, and dates and size; however, when dealing with name sorting, you can choose whether you want to ignore the case of the name or not, which can often mean the difference between a proper order and a very wrong one.
Trimming, appending and case R-Name can also let you add characters to existing filenames. These extra characters can be placed at the beginning or end of the existing name, or before the extension.
The same applies for removing characters from a file name; however, here we also have the 'range' option, where we can tell the program to remove a certain number of characters, starting with a certain one. Furthermore, the range values can start from the beginning of the name, or from the end, giving you a very nice tool to remove a certain part of the filenames, regardless of what it may contain.
When it comes to case in file names, things can be tricky depending on the programs and operating systems that use the files? some tools are case sensitive, others are not. R-Name lets you turn filenames into all uppercase letters, or all lowercase letters. It even has the option to change them into capitalized words, making everything lowercase except for the first letter of each word.
The Good A very well suited tool for making changes in existing filenames, especially complex ones, and those that do not apply to a certain rule.
The Bad Not suited for generating new filenames from scratch. While it is possible, you have to add every element of the new name in a self contained step. While it can be done, it is complicated and often requires you to plan every step of the naming process in advance to avoid possible problems.
The Truth A good tool if you are looking to make adjustments in files names. Depending on your needs, this program might not be the best for you? if so, try Name those Files!.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
