Batch File Renamer

Add your files, write a name template, and the new names appear right away

Add files or a folder to the tool above, type the pattern you want in the new name template, and the list below shows each original name next to its new name. With the template Lisbon_{date}_{n}, IMG_4021.JPG becomes Lisbon_2026-10-03_01.jpg, with the date the photo was taken and a running number. To keep the original name, put {name} in the template. To fix only part of a name, type the text to find and its replacement on the Find and replace tab.

Every character in a new name is colored by where it came from. Text you typed is blue, numbers are purple, dates are green, times are teal and replaced text is pink, while characters from the original name stay as they are. The strip in the summary shows one cell per file (changed, unchanged, with (2), or problem), so even with hundreds of files you can see at once which ones need attention. When the names look right, press Download ZIP.

When files need to be renamed by a rule

• Sorting trip or event photos: a phone names photos IMG_4021 and so on, which says nothing about when or where they were taken. Put the date and place in front and you can tell what a photo shows without opening it, and photos from several people no longer get mixed up when you put them in one folder.
• Following a submission naming convention: schools, employers and application portals often ask for a fixed pattern such as LastName_FirstName_Assignment. One template line renames every file the same way, and you see forbidden characters or duplicate names before you upload.
• Numbering scanned pages: scanner file names tend to come out in the wrong order. Number them by name or by time and fix the number of digits, and 001, 002 and so on sort the same way in any program.
• Fixing names that look split after coming from a Mac: a Mac can save an accented name like canción in a decomposed form, and on Windows or the web it can show up as a base letter plus a loose accent. Recomposing the characters gives a normal name on Windows too.
• Cleaning up downloaded files: tails such as "report (1).pdf" or "report final copy.pdf" added by browsers and messengers can be removed in one go with find and replace. Turning spaces into underscores also makes names easier to use in web addresses and on the command line.
• Making extensions consistent: cameras write .JPG, phones .jpg and some apps .jpeg, so the same kind of photo shows up with three spellings. Lowercase them or set them all to .jpg on the Extension tab for cleaner sorting and searching.

How to use it

1. Press Choose files or Choose folder, or drop files and folders on the workspace. A folder adds only the files directly inside it and skips subfolders and system files such as .DS_Store and Thumbs.db. The list you see first is a names-only example, and it disappears once you add your own files.
2. Write the pattern in the new name template. The Original name, Number, Date and Time buttons insert {name}, {n}, {date} and {time} at the cursor, and any other text goes into the new name exactly as typed. Hover over a button to highlight that part in the list.
3. Open the rule tabs you need. Find and replace changes the original-name part only, Numbering sets the start number, digits and order, Date picks between the time taken and the modified time, and Tidy up handles letter case, spaces, forbidden characters, split characters and duplicate names. A dot marks every tab that differs from its defaults.
4. Check the result in the summary and the list. Files with problems get an orange row and a reason. Uncheck a file to leave it unchanged, and its number is skipped. A cell in the file strip scrolls the list to that file.
5. Press Download ZIP. If only one file is checked you get that single file under its new name, with no ZIP. Copy name list copies two columns, original name and new name, so you can paste them into a spreadsheet as a record.

Template tokens and the names they produce

A token is a name wrapped in curly braces, and it turns into a different value for each file. You can type {name}, {n}, {date} and {time} in English, and they work the same way. The table shows the names this tool made for IMG_4021.JPG when it was taken on 3 October 2026 at 09:12:30, it is the seventh file, and extensions are set to lowercase.

With Auto digits, {n} is padded to the number of digits in the largest number, with at least two digits. Twelve files are numbered 01 to 12, and 120 files are numbered 001 to 120. For the date format 2026-10-03, a time is written with hyphens, like 09-12-30, and in the other formats it is written together, like 091230. This avoids the colon (:), which Windows does not allow in names.

Numbering order and digits

Numbers are assigned in the order shown in the list. Sorting by name is a natural sort that reads the digits inside a name as a value, so "photo2" comes before "photo10". Programs that compare digits one character at a time put "photo10" before "photo2". The table lists the same five files both ways, and the new names you get when you apply the template photo{n} with sorting by name.

Every number in the new names has two digits, so they sort the same way whichever method is used. Some functions, such as StrCmpLogicalW in Windows, compare digits as values, but Microsoft states that the result can change between releases. If the files will move between several programs and web upload lists, it is safer to fix the number of digits.

Besides sorting by name, you can number by the order you added the files, by time (oldest first) or by size (smallest first). Sorting by time follows the source chosen on the Date tab, so photos go in the order they were taken and documents in the order they were last edited. Files that tie keep the order in which you added them.

Time taken and modified time are different things

A JPG photo carries EXIF data written by the camera. This tool first reads DateTimeOriginal, the original capture time defined in the Exif standard (CIPA DC-008), and if it is missing it looks for the digitized time and then the modification time in the photo data. These values are written as "2026:10:03 09:12:30", just the time on the camera's clock, so the tool uses them as they are and does not shift the time zone.

If there is no time taken, the file's modified time is used. A modified time often changes to the moment a file was copied or downloaded, and a browser reports the current time for a file whose modified time it does not know. Photos received through a messenger, screenshots, and photos saved again by an editing app can lose the time taken and end up with the date they were received. HEIC photos do not have their time taken read yet, so the modified time is used. Below the Date tab you see how many files were calculated from a time taken and how many from a modified time, and if your template uses a date or time, hovering over a row in the list shows that file's time taken.

Why accented names can look split after coming from a Mac

The same character can be stored on a computer in two ways. One is the composed form (NFC), which keeps "ó" as a single character, and the other is the decomposed form (NFD), which stores "o" and a combining accent separately. The older Mac file system (HFS Plus) stored names in a decomposed form, while today's APFS preserves the form it is given. Windows does not normalize names and uses the stored characters as they are, so a name that arrives in decomposed form can show a base letter and a loose mark.

The Tidy up option "Recompose split Mac characters" converts the new name to the composed form defined by the Unicode normalization standard (UAX #15). It is on by default, and a file whose original name was decomposed is labeled "Recomposed" in the list. Find and replace also compares after converting to the composed form, so you can find an accented word even in a split name.

What a file name cannot contain

If the computer that unzips or receives the files runs Windows, names that break the rules below are not created or cause an error. This tool checks names against the rules in Microsoft's documentation and stops you from downloading a file with a problem until you fix it.

The 260-character limit applies to the whole path, including folder names, so this tool cannot know it in advance. If you plan to unzip into a deep folder, keep the new names short.

Your original files stay as they are, and you get a ZIP

For security reasons a web browser cannot rename files on your computer directly. This tool does not change a single byte of the content you add. It attaches the new names and packs the files into one ZIP. Photos and videos are already compressed, so they are stored without recompression (uncompressed storage), which is fast and keeps the ZIP about as large as the original files together.

The names inside the ZIP carry the UTF-8 flag (APPNOTE bit 11), so archive programs that read this flag show names in any script correctly. Each file gets the original file's modified time, so sorting by time still works after you unzip. This method works as long as no single file and the total stay under 4 GB, so for a larger set, uncheck some files and download in several rounds. After you unzip and check the names and contents, you can tidy up the originals.

Common mix-ups

• Thinking that a new extension changes the format: renaming .png to .jpg leaves the content as PNG. Some programs cannot open a file whose extension and content disagree, so use a converter to change the format. Choosing to change or remove the extension on the Extension tab also shows a warning.
• Numbers not in the order you expected: the starting order is by name. To number photos in the order they were taken, choose time on the Numbering tab and check that the Date tab uses the time taken.
• Find and replace does not change text from the template: it applies to the original name only. Text you typed in the template is edited in the template. If the template has no {name}, the find and replace result does not appear in the new name either.
• Dates show today or the day a file was received: a file without a time taken uses its modified time. This is what happens to photos that went through a messenger, a screenshot or an editing app, and "modified time n" below the Date tab tells you how many.
• Two names look the same but no (2) is added: comparison ignores case and character form, so "Photo.jpg" and "photo.JPG" count as the same name. On the other hand "photo.jpg" and "photo.jpeg" have different extensions, so they are different names.
• Double extensions such as tar.gz: the extension is only what follows the last period. The base name of "backup.tar.gz" is "backup.tar", so text from the template may not land in front of .tar. For files like this, find and replace is more precise.

What this tool cannot do

• It does not rename the original in place. You download a copy under the new name, as a ZIP or a single file, so check that you have room for a copy of the same size.
• You can add up to 1,000 files at a time, and a ZIP cannot be made if a single file or the total is over 4 GB (ZIP64 is not supported).
• A folder adds only the files directly inside it. Renaming that keeps a subfolder structure is not supported.
• The time taken is read only from the EXIF data of JPG files. HEIC, PNG and RAW photos and videos use the file's modified time, and time zone data (OffsetTimeOriginal) is not applied.
• Find and replace matches text literally and does not support regular expressions. To replace several words at once, download in several rounds, or build the name list first with a bulk text replacer.
• It cannot know the full path length (260 characters) or whether the destination folder already has a file with the same name.
• Files are read only inside this browser and are never sent to a server or kept in storage. Copy name list works only over a secure connection (HTTPS).

Sources

Basis: the file name rules, normalization, ZIP format and EXIF time were checked against the originals below on 22 October 2026. The new names in the tables are values this page's tool calculated with the same rules.

• 01Microsoft Learn — Naming Files, Paths, and NamespacesForbidden characters, reserved names (including COM¹ and LPT¹, and NUL.txt as well), no trailing space or period, case-insensitive matching, names are not normalized
• 02Microsoft Learn — Maximum Path Length LimitationPath limit MAX_PATH of 260 characters, a single name commonly 255
• 03Apple — Apple File System Guide, FAQAPFS preserves the case and normalization of names and compares them ignoring normalization
• 04Apple Technical Q&A QA1173 — Text Encodings in VFSHFS Plus stores names in decomposed Unicode (an NFD variant)
• 05Unicode Standard Annex #15 — Unicode Normalization FormsRevision 58 (Unicode 18.0.0, 2026-08-12): NFC is canonical decomposition followed by canonical composition, and Hangul syllables are decomposed and composed algorithmically
• 06PKWARE — APPNOTE.TXT, .ZIP File Format Specification6.3.10: general purpose bit 11 marks UTF-8 names, method 0 is stored uncompressed, ZIP64 is needed above 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x5455 extended timestamp
• 07CIPA DC-008-2026 — Exif 3.1DateTimeOriginal tag 36867 (0x9003), format "YYYY:MM:DD HH:MM:SS", with the time zone kept separately in OffsetTimeOriginal (36881)
• 08MDN Web Docs — File: lastModified propertyLast modified time in milliseconds, the current time for files where it is unknown
• 09Microsoft Learn — StrCmpLogicalW functionCompares digits as numbers, but the result can change between releases, so do not rely on it for a fixed sort order
• 10Linux Kernel Documentation — ext4 Directory EntriesLinux ext4 stores file names of up to 255 bytes (a Korean or Japanese character takes 3 bytes in UTF-8)

Frequently asked questions

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