Filed under: Software, Universal Binary, Leopard
Name Mangler: batch rename your files
Most people rarely ever have to rename a whole lot of files at once. Let's face it -- batch file renaming isn't UNIX kernel reprogramming, but it's one of those irritating tasks that can be a surprising amount of trouble for casual or even more experienced users without the right tools. As a web designer and developer, I find myself having to numerically rename images a lot or add "_tb" suffixes for thumbnails, for example.
Luckily for Leopard users, there's Name Mangler 2.0, a donationware app by Mac developer Many Tricks that does all the stuff you might need a batch file renamer to do: change case or extension, prefix or suffix a file name, remove characters, the works. You can even store renaming configurations as droplets that you can drop files or folders on to.
Unfortunately, Name Mangler is Leopard-only. Many Tricks has an earlier app, File List (direct download link), that apparently does the same thing for pre-Leopard systems; another alternative app is File Wrangler, which resides on my 10.4.9-running MacBook Pro quite happily, or the venerable and powerful A Better Finder Rename.
[via Lifehacker]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scott said 10:39AM on 5-21-2008
NameMangler is the best renaming tool I've seen outside of GraphicConverter's, which was the main thing I used GC for now that Preview and other Finder tools for handling images (like QuickLook) etc. are so much more capable than they used to be. I highly recommend NameMangler!
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Quine said 12:50PM on 5-21-2008
Seconded. regex support with live preview = great.
alexjackson said 10:50AM on 5-21-2008
Better Finder Rename is.. well.. Better
Google it - ridiculous amount of rename power/options.
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Quine said 12:50PM on 5-21-2008
it also costs money, which is important to note.
alexjackson said 2:16PM on 5-21-2008
True, but after renaming a batch or two of 100's of files it pays for itself just in man hour(s).
Rob said 10:57AM on 5-21-2008
Renamer4Mac is also great for renaming files. Not sure if it's
updated for Leapord.
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adam shiver said 11:46AM on 5-21-2008
I believe it is updated for Leopard.
http://renamer4mac.com/
5cents said 12:15PM on 5-21-2008
But along with the update it went shareware. I still use the older version which works just fine.
Saxon said 11:04AM on 5-21-2008
I just use automator. Heck, why open up a program every time to add _tb to a file when you can save an automator action that does it in two clicks?
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Terry Jackson said 11:39AM on 5-21-2008
I use R-Name, have for years.
It doesn't have droplet capability,
which is cool, but it runs fine in Tiger 10.4.11,
and is quite speedy. And is donationware too.
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Nate LaCourse said 11:46PM on 5-21-2008
Unofficial UB of R-Name:
http://movieconverter.online.fr/DL/R-NameUB.zip
Wheelie4 said 11:52AM on 5-21-2008
I second Saxon's suggestion to use Automator. Just create a workflow and save as a Finder plug-in. Works great.
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Martini Agonistes said 12:05PM on 5-21-2008
I just use automator...don't even save the action since it takes about 2 seconds to put it together.
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Quine said 12:49PM on 5-21-2008
Does automator support regex? As far as I've seen it doesn't, and it doesn't show what the name will look like after you're done as you're modifying the expression, which is really handy.
A better finder renamer is nice but it's also pretty expensive for a renaming tool, I'd rather just have a lower powered piece of freeware for my purposes.
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Kev Orng said 1:20PM on 5-21-2008
What's wrong with AppleScript?
When I click on that little applescript logo on the menu bar, I get all these handy pre-written scripts.
In the Finder Scripts folder, there are a dozen or so scripts to rename files, add to file names, replace text in file names...
If I wanted to add _tb to the end of every filename, I'd select the folder that the files are in, choose the "add to file names" script from the menu, then select "Suffix" or "Prefix" depending on which end of the name I want it on. Done.
If I want to then remove _tb, I'd select the same folder, choose "Replace text in file names." The text I want to replace is "_tb" and the text I want to replace it with is "" (nothing).
Done.
Not sure where these scripts came from, but I've been using them since Panther. I always figured they were installed with either Panther or Jaguar. No matter, I still use them all the time.
I'm not going to go download an app for this.
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Kev Orng said 1:25PM on 5-21-2008
ps. when i want to do the same action on a Windows PC, I walk over to the Mac, open the target folder across the network, and run the desired script. Easier than anything XP offers.
PSM said 1:17PM on 5-21-2008
The main thing I need file renaming for is to preserve screenshots of an online game I play. I use my PC for gaming and my Mac for everything else, so getting the images where I want them can be a pain, especially since the game reuses file names, so every time I import I wind up with a bunch of files called SS01, SS02, etc.
I recently wrote an automator action that connects to the PC over my network, retrieves all the screenshot files from the game directory, imports them to a folder on my Mac, and renames them with a date and time stamp so there will never be duplicate names. It's the first useful thing I've wanted to do with automator that I've actually gotten to work properly, without needing to know Applescript. I will put Name Mangler in my utilities folder for other one-off renaming tasks, but I also second Automator for anyone who needs to do regular renaming.
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Billifer said 9:20PM on 5-21-2008
The power of not only a regex but an actual grammar for writing renaming "programs" in Name Mangler / File List make them amazingly useful. Using the regex tools and the advanced renaming where I can apply my own series, capitalization rules, etc., I can rename pretty much any group of files with a given pattern of names in just one step: More than I can say for any other tool I've ever tried -- even command-line utilities like sed. I consider Name Mangler essential software. I just wish that "go" button was in a different location. :-/
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MRRSoftware said 11:32AM on 5-22-2008
Readers may also be interested in NameChanger, a free file renamer.
http://web.mac.com/mickeyroberson/MRR_Software/NameChanger.html
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