One of the things you can do to better organize your files is to give them appropriate names so you can easily locate them whenever you want. For instance, if you have files for all of the students in your class and you wish to put them in a sequence, you can add an increasing number at the end of their file names. That way all those files will appear in the increasing order on your machine and it will be easy for you to locate a particular file. But, how do you go about renaming such a large number of files?
That is where the batch renaming feature comes into the picture. What it does is let you rename a group of files at once so you do not have to go through each file to rename it individually. It saves you time by letting you rename multiple files with your chosen formatting at once.
The said feature is not present in the versions of OS X prior to Yosemite. However, you can use third-party tools to get the job done on your Mac even though you are not running Yosemite. But as long as you are running the latest Yosemite on your Mac, you can use the new batch renaming feature that is integrated into the Finder app.
Here’s how.
Batch Renaming Files in OS X Yosemite
Since the feature is built right into the Finder app, you just need to launch the folder where the files to be renamed are located. Open that folder using Finder on your Mac.
Select the files that you want to rename. You can use the Command key to select multiple files. You can press “Command + A” to select all the files in that particular folder.
Now, right click on any of those selected files and select “Rename X Items…” where X is the number of files that you have selected to be renamed. In my case, it says eleven files as I have selected eleven files for renaming.
Once you select Rename, you will be shown a dialog box that lets you apply multiple name formats to your files. Those are:
Replace text – it lets you replace the text in the file name with something of your liking.
Add text – you can add specific text before or after the name of the file
Format – this one has multiple parameters to set. It lets you put your files in a sequence with a number in the names.
When you are done playing around with different name variations, click the “Rename” button, and it will rename all the selected files as per the settings you chose in the above dialog boxes.
It will not take too long to rename the files, and it should be done within a few seconds. Once that is done, you should be able to see your renamed files. Mine are shown below:
Conclusion
Renaming each file individually takes time and is not the most efficient way to get the job done. OS X Yosemite brings with it this cool feature that lets you rename a bunch of files at once without any effort.
Do let us know how it works for you!
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Mahesh Makvana
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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