Batch Renaming of Files in a Directory

Question

Is there an easy way to rename a group of files already contained in a directory, using Python?

Example: I have a directory full of *.doc files an

Answer 1

If you don't mind using regular expressions, then this function would give you much power in renaming files:

import re, glob, os

def renamer(files, pattern, replacement):
    for pathname in glob.glob(files):
        basename= os.path.basename(pathname)
        new_filename= re.sub(pattern, replacement, basename)
        if new_filename != basename:
            os.rename(
              pathname,
              os.path.join(os.path.dirname(pathname), new_filename))

So in your example, you could do (assuming it's the current directory where the files are):

renamer("*.doc", r"^(.*)\.doc$", r"new(\1).doc")

but you could also roll back to the initial filenames:

renamer("*.doc", r"^new\((.*)\)\.doc", r"\1.doc")

and more.

Answer 2

I had a similar problem, but I wanted to append text to the beginning of the file name of all files in a directory and used a similar method. See example below:

folder = r"R:\mystuff\GIS_Projects\Website\2017\PDF"

import os


for root, dirs, filenames in os.walk(folder):


for filename in filenames:  
    fullpath = os.path.join(root, filename)  
    filename_split = os.path.splitext(filename) # filename will be filename_split[0] and extension will be filename_split[1])
    print fullpath
    print filename_split[0]
    print filename_split[1]
    os.rename(os.path.join(root, filename), os.path.join(root, "NewText_2017_" + filename_split[0] + filename_split[1]))

Answer 3

as to me in my directory I have multiple subdir, each subdir has lots of images I want to change all the subdir images to 1.jpg ~ n.jpg

def batch_rename():
    base_dir = 'F:/ad_samples/test_samples/'
    sub_dir_list = glob.glob(base_dir + '*')
    # print sub_dir_list # like that ['F:/dir1', 'F:/dir2']
    for dir_item in sub_dir_list:
        files = glob.glob(dir_item + '/*.jpg')
        i = 0
        for f in files:
            os.rename(f, os.path.join(dir_item, str(i) + '.jpg'))
            i += 1

(mys own answer)https://stackoverflow.com/a/45734381/6329006

Answer 4

directoryName = "Photographs"
filePath = os.path.abspath(directoryName)
filePathWithSlash = filePath + "\\"

for counter, filename in enumerate(os.listdir(directoryName)):

    filenameWithPath = os.path.join(filePathWithSlash, filename)

    os.rename(filenameWithPath, filenameWithPath.replace(filename,"DSC_" + \
          str(counter).zfill(4) + ".jpg" ))

# e.g. filename = "photo1.jpg", directory = "c:\users\Photographs"        
# The string.replace call swaps in the new filename into 
# the current filename within the filenameWitPath string. Which    
# is then used by os.rename to rename the file in place, using the  
# current (unmodified) filenameWithPath.

# os.listdir delivers the filename(s) from the directory
# however in attempting to "rename" the file using os 
# a specific location of the file to be renamed is required.

# this code is from Windows 

Answer 5

Such renaming is quite easy, for example with os and glob modules:

import glob, os

def rename(dir, pattern, titlePattern):
    for pathAndFilename in glob.iglob(os.path.join(dir, pattern)):
        title, ext = os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(pathAndFilename))
        os.rename(pathAndFilename, 
                  os.path.join(dir, titlePattern % title + ext))

You could then use it in your example like this:

rename(r'c:\temp\xx', r'*.doc', r'new(%s)')

The above example will convert all *.doc files in c:\temp\xx dir to new(%s).doc, where %s is the previous base name of the file (without extension).

Answer 6

Be in the directory where you need to perform the renaming.

import os
# get the file name list to nameList
nameList = os.listdir() 
#loop through the name and rename
for fileName in nameList:
    rename=fileName[15:28]
    os.rename(fileName,rename)
#example:
#input fileName bulk like :20180707131932_IMG_4304.JPG
#output renamed bulk like :IMG_4304.JPG