Beginners Guide for Rename Command in Linux

In Linux, the rename command is an amazing utility that allows you to rename single or multiple files at once, based on a set of rules or regular expressions you specify.

Most of the time, the mv command is used to rename files or folders. However, the rename command has more features, but can be harder for a beginner to use, because it requires knowledge of Perl expressions.

In this article, you will learn how to use the rename command in real life with practical examples.

Tutorial Details

Installing the Rename Utility on Linux

Some Linux distributions come with the rename utility built in, but if yours doesn’t, you can install it with one of the following commands:

$ sudo apt install rename                                                                          #On Debian and Ubuntu
$ sudo dnf install prename                                                                       #On Red Hat and Fedora
$ sudo pacman -S rename                                                                       #On Arch and Manjaro

Rename Command Syntax and Options

The rename command takes three arguments: one is the option; the second is the Perl expressions; and the third is the files.

$ rename [OPTION] perlexpr files

The rename command will rename the “files” based on the specified “perlexpr” regular expression.

For example, the following command will change all the file names with capital letters to names with lowercase letters.

$ rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *

Also, check out the following list of options that this command utilizes:

Given that, let’s look at some examples of how to use this command.

• How to Rename Files and Directories in Linux

Changing the Filenames

The following command will replace all the text files named “file1.txt“, “file2.txt“, and “file3.txt” with “myfile1.txt“, “myfile2.txt“, and “myfile3.txt” in your current working directory.

$ rename -v 's/file/myfile/' *.txt

Output:

Changing the File Extension

When you execute the following command, it will search for all the text files in your current working directory and change their extension from “.txt” to “.pdf“, as shown.

$ rename -v 's/.txt/.pdf/' *.txt

Output:

Adding an Underscore to the Filenames

The following command will add the “_” underscores in between the filename, like “myfile1.txt“, “myfile2.txt“, and “myfile3.txt” will be renamed to “myfile_1.txt“, “myfile_2.txt“, and “myfile_3.txt” filenames, respectively.

$ rename -v 's/myfile/myfile_/' *.txt

Output:

Remove a Part from the Filenames

The following command will allow you to remove a specific part (in this case, “my“) from the referenced filenames.

$ rename -v 's/my//' *.txt

Output:

Rename the Files Sharing a Similar Name.

If you have multiple files that share similar names like “myfile1.txt” and “my_file1.txt“, both share the common “*file1.txt” in their name.

So, using these similarities, you can change the names of both of these files to something like “text1.txt“, as shown.

$ rename -v 's/(my_|my)file/test/' *.txt

Output:

Replacing Spaces in the Filenames with Underscores

The following command will replace all the spaces in the referenced filenames with “_” underscores, so “file name1.txt” will be renamed to “file_name1.txt“, as shown.

$ rename -v 'y/ /\_/' *.txt

Output:

Converting Filenames to Uppercase

The following command will convert the filenames from lowercase to uppercase.

$ rename -v 'y/a-z/A-Z/' *.txt

Output:

Converting Filenames to Lowercase

The following command will convert the filenames from uppercase to lowercase.

$ rename -v 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *.TXT

Output:

Exit Status

The rename command uses five exit statuses, followed by:

• 0: The operation was completed successfully.
• 1: Renaming the files failed.
• 2: A few files failed while renaming.
• 4: Nothing was renamed.
• 64: An unanticipated error occurred.

• What is Exit Status Code ($?) of Last Command in Linux

So, that is all about this command that you should know as an informed Linux user.

If you have any interesting examples that should be included in this article, then let us know in the comment section.