Bulk Rename Utility

'Select all'
edit replace/with required changes
ok to 'rename'
try to edit existing text with 'replace/with' for further renaming.... get rotating arrow for long periods for each character,

Work around
'Deselect All' after rename is complete
edit existing 'replace/with' to new search......edits OK

Note 22,000 files 821 folders

Note 22,000 files

That looks to be the issue. Confirmed.

Hi, does this happen after having renamed the 22,000 files? thanks

The problem seems to stem from the number of files selected to operate on, even a small number will show the 'Processing' circle. It doesn't really matter which editing function is used, each character or operation is acted on immediately and a search is made of all the files selected, thus causing the delay.

There is really no way round this other than
get a Faster Machine.
Don't select too many files at once.
Deselect between each renaming sequence as suggested.
Provide an option to delay processing of the files until the editing is fully specified

Thanks, could you tell me the exact steps to reproduce this? Maybe we can speed-up the algo. thanks!

Sticking to the 'Replace' example
Open a folder with a large number of files - the more files the more obvious the time taken to search.
'Select All'. (include sub folders if necessary)
Go to 'replace' and start typing a string to search for. Immediately you will be aware of the length of time each letter takes.
The programme will have to search every file name for occurrence of the first letter and this takes a lot of time.
The second and subsequent letter seems to take the same amount of time, yet each search will have eliminated loads of file names.
It shouldn't be necessary to search any eliminated files again.
Note this doesn't work when deleting characters from the string, a full search is required each time. (most search boxes have an X to delete the entire string, this is quicker than highlighting and deleting which still incurs a one off time delay for some reason)
I presume each search will produce a table of pointers to each file name containing the first character. This table will then be used to search for the next character to speed up the search. Deleting could be sped up by creating an additional table for EACH character in the string, thus a deletion simply steps back to the previous table.
As stated a simple workaround is enter the search string first THEN 'select all'.
Similarly to delete or edit the string 'Deselect All ' first, enter the new string and 'Select All' again.
It is very nice to see the changes dynamically with a small selection of folders but with a large number it's not possible to see all the results anyway. Perhaps an option the defer searching to 'rename' with proper opportunities to view the results before proceeding (another thread sometime)

Sticking to the 'Replace' example
Open a folder with a large number of files - the more files the more obvious the time taken to search.
'Select All'. (include sub folders if necessary)
Go to 'replace' and start typing a string to search for. Immediately you will be aware of the length of time each letter takes.
The programme will have to search every file name for occurrence of the first letter and this takes a lot of time.
The second and subsequent letter seems to take the same amount of time, yet each search will have eliminated loads of file names.
It shouldn't be necessary to search any eliminated files again.
Note this doesn't work when deleting characters from the string, a full search is required each time. (most search boxes have an X to delete the entire string, this is quicker than highlighting and deleting which still incurs a one off time delay for some reason)
I presume each search will produce a table of pointers to each file name containing the first character. This table will then be used to search for the next character to speed up the search. Deleting could be sped up by creating an additional table for EACH character in the string, thus a deletion simply steps back to the previous table.
As stated a simple workaround is enter the search string first THEN 'select all'.
Similarly to delete or edit the string 'Deselect All ' first, enter the new string and 'Select All' again.
It is very nice to see the changes dynamically with a small selection of folders but with a large number it's not possible to see all the results anyway. Perhaps an option the defer searching to 'rename' with proper opportunities to view the results before proceeding (another thread sometime)

I'm on a faster machine now, Win7, i5-3570, 16 GB RAM, & 20K items isn't too bad.

(I'll come back [monday or so] & post earlier machine specs... XP... Thinking e4600 ? & 2 GB RAM & at the time I looked, I used far less then 20K files in my "test".)

My own machine is an Intel i5-4670K with 16 Gb and an ASUS Z97 motherboard, no overclocking and Windows 10

XP... Thinking e4600 ? & 2 GB RAM

Intel e4300 Core 2.