rename Command Examples

Rename multiple files. Note: this page refers to the command from the util-linux package. For the Perl version, see file-rename or perl-rename. Warning: This command has no safeguards and will overwrite files without prompting. More information: https://manned.org/rename.

• Rename files using simple substitutions (substitute 'foo' with 'bar' wherever found):

rename {{foo}} {{bar}} {{*}}

• Dry-run - display which renames would occur without performing them:

rename -vn {{foo}} {{bar}} {{*}}

• Do not overwrite existing files:

rename -o {{foo}} {{bar}} {{*}}

• Change file extensions:

rename {{.ext}} {{.bak}} {{*.ext}}

• Prepend "foo" to all filenames in the current directory:

rename {{''}} {{'foo'}} {{*}}

• Rename a group of increasingly numbered files zero-padding the numbers up to 3 digits:

rename {{foo}} {{foo00}} {{foo?}} && rename {{foo}} {{foo0}} {{foo??}}