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I have a bunch of files named similar to this:

1_1.pngEND1_1.png

How would you replace .pngEND with _?

I've googled this problem and tried literally 5+ solutions, non of which worked on mac.

sanjihan
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  • If you edit your post to detail one solution you sel cited to try and the link you used, we might be able to correct what doesn't work for you. (Or point to a better tool to batch rename files). I'd use bash or Python depending on how easy a restore from backup was, but those tools or just using mv could backfire if you're not already good with the syntax needed.. – bmike Apr 12 '17 at 08:46
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    I suggest that you look at the venerable perl rename- http://search.cpan.org/~pederst/rename-1.9/bin/rename.PL – fd0 Apr 12 '17 at 12:44

5 Answers5

21

Unless you need a solution you can use in a script, you can do this directly in Finder.

  • Select the files you want to rename
  • Right click one of them, and choose Rename N Items... (where N is the number of selected files)
  • Choose the Replace Text option in the dropdown
  • Enter the text you want to replace (".pngEND") and the text you want to replace it with ("_")
  • Click Rename
calum_b
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    This is great but is there a way to do this recursively? – HippoDuck Jul 20 '21 at 16:34
  • Depends what you mean by recursively. It will happily rename files in multiple different folders in one go, but you will still need to manually find and select them all first before selecting Rename. – calum_b Jul 22 '21 at 14:32
9

There are tons of ways to do this, for instance

for i in *pngEND*.png; do [[ -e ${i/.pngEND/_} ]] || echo mv "$i" "${i/.pngEND/_}"; done

Remove the echo if the output looks sensible.

nohillside
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2

If your not familier with terminal or scripts, you can use the mac app called NameChanger (free to use). You can change almost everything in batch on filenames / file extentions.

rwzdoorn
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    For this specific type of batch rename, though, there's no need for 3rd party apps--Finder can do it. – calum_b Apr 12 '17 at 10:58
1

If I had to do this, I'd use rename command available for install via HomeBrew.

Example:

Setup:

mac:test user$ touch 1_1.pngEND1_1.png

mac:test user$ ls
1_1.pngEND1_1.png

Run rename command:

mac:test user$ rename 's/\.pngEND/_/' *.pngEND*

Result:

mac:test user$ ls
1_1_1_1.png
Adam Krouskop
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I've also used the perl rename tool to some success. It also has a dry run option so you can test before you execute the changes.

Pysis
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  • Do I need to install anything to use perl commands? – sanjihan Apr 12 '17 at 20:31
  • That just the history. It's just a tool contained in the package manager that can be used on Linux/GNU-based environments. It may be in it's own like perl-rename. – Pysis Apr 12 '17 at 20:39