XP Renaming a Series of Files

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I recently downloaded pictures taken with my digital camera and as usual they had names which made no sense to me like imag0051.jpg, imag0050.jpg, etc.

In the past I would rename each one according to the event and date taken. This task was very tedious, as I would have to go into thumbnail view and determine what the name was going to be each time, not very efficient.

I decided to do a Google search with the phrase “rename a series of files”. The first page of 10 entries, out of about 5,840,000 entries, all referred to a built in XP function to accomplish just what I was looking for. My original thought was that I would have to use some type of freeware or shareware to do what I wanted but, as I am using XP, this suits my purposes.

To use this function in XP:

  • Locate the series of files to be renamed.
  • Select the files to be renamed. (Any type of file, not limited to images, but they must be all the same extension.)
  • On the File menu, click Rename. (You can also right click the first selected file and then click Rename.)
  • Type the new name, with appropriate extension, and press Enter.

The selected files will now be sequentially named, that is newname.ext, newname1.ext,newname2.ext, etc.

If you want to specify the start of the numbering sequence, so that all files are numbered, just type the starting number in parenthesis after the new file name and before the extension. e.g. newname(01).ext

Now, by using the tactic described above, I have much more descriptive files with names like July05_HiltonHead_Vacation(10).jpg, Katlynn_Birthday_05(12).jpg, bpcablog(12).txt, etc. I think these are much easier to find and categorize. Try it for yourself, it should be easier to keep track of your files this way.

Retired, grandfather, blogger, participating in creative writing prompt blogs, and love to read.