I keep forgetting about this trick, so I thought I’d post it in the event I have to ever do it again.
Part of the problem with a graphical GUI is that it’s very difficult to rename files in batches, for instance, prepending some text to a group of files. This kind of thing is fairly trivial at the command line.
Apple has a facility to do this, but as it’s not something a regular user does often, it’s not enabled by default. Here’s how to get all kinds of additional functionality out of OS X.
1) Open /Applications/AppleScript
2) Turn on Show Script Menu in menu bar
3) Optional: turn on GUI scripting, show library scripts, and choose where to show them.
You’ll notice up near the time in the menu bar a black scroll has appeared.
All the batch renaming and filename twiddling stuff is under the Finder Scripts.
UPDATE 19-Dec-2009: Upgrading to Snow Leopards deletes some useful scripts, specifically the Finder Scripts.
UPDATE 31-Aug-2010: The scripts live in “/Library/Scripts/Finger Scripts” and are
- Add to File Names.scpt
md5 4b0cd899acb19b5fc62ef2049d81a933 – 18114 bytes - Change Case of Item Names.scpt
md5 af7429228be4d0e1a096092af5341c52 – 17808 bytes - Replace Text in Item Names.scpt
md5 716493cab1c569953a7f40d76ed9a1f7 – 24328 bytes
I was looking for this very functionality today. I have also accomplished it in the past via AppleScript, but can’t find the script anymore. I figured out how to add the functionality to the contextual menu in Finder via an Automator.app workflow. I have made this workflow available as a free download:
Add Bulk File Renaming to Apple’s OSX Finder.app
http://www.bohemianalps.com/blog/2010/08/add-bulk-file-renaming-osx-finder/