Bulk Rename Utility

Hello Guys,

Newbie here! I have to bulk rename thousands of files. Here is my structure.

Main folder is PHOTOS, then there are tons of sub-folders. I would like to rename all the pictures to match the sub folder title. I have figured that part out by clicking on SUBFOLDERS AND FILES, and leaving FOLDER unchecked, then changing KEEP to REMOVE under NAME, then set to PREFIX under APPEND FOLDER NAME.

But my problem is that inside these sub-folders aren't just pictures, but word files, text files, excel, power points, etc. If I SELECT ALL, it takes forever to control/deselect all the files I don't want to rename. Is there an easy way for me to select only the files I want to change? Or somehow tell the program to exclude certain files/extensions from showing up in the tree?

Please advise, thank you for your time.

The "Mask" inside Filters(12) will grant or forbid which filenames present inside of the file-list.
To forbid by extension, it can be like... * !*.docx !*.txt !*.xlsx !*.pptx
To grant by extension, it can be like... *.jpg *.jpeg *.png *.bmp *.gif
Then click the blue-arrows to the right side of "Mask" to present the new file-list.

Aside from something like that...

Everything is great at finding files.
Everything even has preset (& modifiable) Filters, one of which is "Picture".

So if you point Everything to your wanted directory, say, "C:\MyPHOTOS" & enable the Picture filter, then only "pictures" should turn up. Now if you drag that set of files into BRU...

Luuk wrote:The "Mask" inside Filters(12) will grant or forbid which filenames present inside of the file-list.
To forbid by extension, it can be like... * !*.docx !*.txt !*.xlsx !*.pptx
To grant by extension, it can be like... *.jpg *.jpeg *.png *.bmp *.gif
Then click the blue-arrows to the right side of "Mask" to present the new file-list.

Thank you very much, that worked for me! On a slight tangent, have you noticed that selecting multiple files to delete doesn't work? There will be a pop-up that says the file no longer exist. It'll say this about the first file you highlighted. Then I'll say try again or SKIP, if I skip, it'll just have the pop-up again about the next file. So you just have to SKIP ALL. Then when I hit refresh, the files are still there. However, if you delete individually, right click then delete... this works. There is some sort of quirk with deleting multiple files.

therube wrote:Aside from something like that...

Everything is great at finding files.
Everything even has preset (& modifiable) Filters, one of which is "Picture".

So if you point Everything to your wanted directory, say, "C:\MyPHOTOS" & enable the Picture filter, then only "pictures" should turn up. Now if you drag that set of files into BRU...

Hi, thanks for the suggestion. I tried that program, and it just populates every drive and folder on my PC, except for my NAS. The NAS is actually where I would like to explore with this program. Is there a way to direct it to explore my NAS? Also, a way to tell it what drives and folders to open, instead of having it populate everything on the main screen?

If the NAS is not NTFS, you'll need to add it as a folder index.
Options | Indexes | Folders --> Add... \\NAS\MUSIC
(or whatever the case may be, or even N:\MUSIC if it's mapped)

If you don't need your NTFS drives...
Options | Indexes | NTFS...
uncheck, Automatically include, & Remove any existing (if desired)

Greetings, Im not having any of this multiple-delete problem, when using with the version 3.4.3.0.
The only thing that Im guessing, is maybe you have many same-named files, so its not really the same files?
Each time Im deleting many files, they do always get settled directly to the recycle bin.

But the deleted filenames still present inside of my file-list, until I conduct "refresh" or click the blue arrows.
If you need to conduct a mass delete, maybe there can be a better search to find only the files you want to delete??
Depending on the criteria for a mass-delete, maybe Filters(12) with RegEx or the everything.exe will conduct a better search?

Luuk wrote:Greetings, Im not having any of this multiple-delete problem, when using with the version 3.4.3.0.
The only thing that Im guessing, is maybe you have many same-named files, so its not really the same files?
Each time Im deleting many files, they do always get settled directly to the recycle bin.

But the deleted filenames still present inside of my file-list, until I conduct "refresh" or click the blue arrows.
If you need to conduct a mass delete, maybe there can be a better search to find only the files you want to delete??
Depending on the criteria for a mass-delete, maybe Filters(12) with RegEx or the everything.exe will conduct a better search?

Hi Luuk, I was able to use the EVERYTHING program that was recommended above to solve my mass deletion issue. But now I need to use BRU to remove words from folder and file names. Lets say I want the program to search for these words: Canon, Sony, Alpha, iPhone. Remove these words from any file or folder that has these words, and replace it with nothing. I just want these words removed. How do I do that in Bru?

Inside Filters(12) to put a checkmark in 'RegEx', and a 'Mask' like... (\b|_)(Canon|Sony|Alpha|iPhone)(\b|_)
To remove just the words, RegEx(1) needs a checkmark in "v2" with a 'Match' like...
(\b|(?<=_))(Canon|Sony|Alpha|iPhone)(\b|(?=_))/g

This can be better than using Replace(3) with Canon|Sony|Alpha|iPhone just in case of having names like...
AlphabetSoup.txt ===> betSoup.txt