Friday Favorite: R-Name

R-Name is a simple, single-purpose application that takes the names of files and folders on your Mac and renames them one at a time or in batches. I use it almost every day. Yes, there are a dozen ways to batch rename files. I like R-Name for a few reasons:

It's fast, both in loading and renaming
Easy to rename just files, folders or recurse folder
Hard to mess things up because you have to preview the new names before committing
Drag and drop (Apple forgets how important this feature is all too frequently)

Here are the functions you can perform with R-Name: find and replace, number sequentially, add characters (beginning, before extension, at end), remove characters with the same options, change case, add/replace/remove extensions. There are some smart prefs too, but that's icing on the cake.

Oh, and did I mention: it's donationware! The author asks you to make a donation to UNICEF. Unfortunately, R-Name appears to be abandonware -- the author's site is currently down (thus the source code is unavailable) and best I can tell the app is only supported to 10.3. But it works for me. What renaming tool or workflow do you use?

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Source: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14404

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Friday Favorite

R-Name is a simple, single-purpose application that takes the names of files and folders on your Mac and renames them one at a time or in...

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Patte

No, no, noâ€¦ R-NAME is the fastest one.
I swear - Iâ€™ve tried them all but this oldie
is a goldie.

March 05 2009 at 3:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

JiN

What the hell does this mean?

"Drag and drop (Apple forgets how important this feature is all too frequently)"

March 02 2009 at 9:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to JiN's comment

Victor Agreda, Jr.

In iPhoto 08 you can't drag and drop when viewing a photo at full size (not talking full screen, just in viewing photos in the normal UI).
iMovie 08 is full of situations where you SHOULD be able to drag media around, but you cannot.

Now the iPhone home screen loves it some drag and drop. To a fault.

March 02 2009 at 10:32 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Floodo1

for a more powerful platform agnostic (uses python) renaming program try looking into Metamorphose. I love it (yay for regex support)

March 02 2009 at 1:14 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Andrew

another vote for name mangler!

March 01 2009 at 2:11 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dane Deasy

How does this program compare to A Better Finder Rename? That's what I currently use for all my renaming needs.

February 28 2009 at 2:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Dane Deasy's comment

Chris

Yes I've been using A Better Finder Rename for a long time, too. No complaints here, but I'm always open to new/better apps.

February 28 2009 at 8:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

DRVGON

There is this wonderful new tool called GOOGLE... heres what ya do. type in name mangler and then the search button and then notice the first link on the page. http://www.manytricks.com/namemangler/

name mangler FTW

do some more Research next time TUAW ;)

February 28 2009 at 2:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mbabco

I'm unable to find a download site.

February 28 2009 at 12:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to mbabco's comment

cannonballseven

See comment #25.

February 28 2009 at 1:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jann

I'm trying to decide between ExifRenamer and NameMangler - mostly for renaming all my digital files (it's been a huge annoyance for me in iPhoto....I just hate all those img files that are cluttering my finder). Anyway, I'd be interested in anyone who has used BOTH these apps. Also, I just went to VersionTracker and did a search for NameMangler. Nothing came up.

February 28 2009 at 8:00 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Andrew

I have used the last free version (2.8.2?) of Renamer4mac for a long time, and it's the best I've tried -- regular expressions are the way to go when searching and replacing.

February 28 2009 at 4:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

samsonsu

seriously, the author of total commander should create a version for mac

February 27 2009 at 8:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply