Explore how to bulk-rename files quickly with Bash

Update: Mike Wilcox provided this much more simple way of bulk-renaming files:

ls *old|sed 's/\(.*\)\.old/mv \1.old  \1.new/'|sh

Now that's compact!

Here's the original article:

Let's say you have 100 files with a ".php' extention, and you want to rename them so they have a ".html" extension. Here's how you do it:

1. Create a file (e.g., rename.sh) with this code:

   #!/bin/bash
   
   oldext=php
   newext=html
   
   for oldfile in `ls *.$oldext`; do
       [[ "$oldfile" =~ "(.*)\.$oldext" ]]
       newfile="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}.$newext"
       mv $oldfile $newfile
   done
   

2. Give it execute permissions: chmod 755 rename.sh
3. Run it: ./rename.sh

Variations

• Recursive Renaming To rename files recursively through sub-directories, use the find command instead of ls
• Specify old and new extensions from command line Assign oldext to $0 and newtext to $1.

Links

• Some great how-tos for Bash