The World According to Mitch

I take a lot of pictures… not only with my phone, but also with my Nikon DSLR camera.  It is one of my hobbies… I am not very good at it, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Keeping track of hundreds or thousands of pictures is easy, as long as you copy them into the appropriate directory in your computer.  It is easy to keep track, so I might have the following files in a directory:

Volume in drive E is SWMI Blue-2T
Volume Serial Number is 9ED7-318E

Directory of E:\Holiday Snaps

2017-12-19  03:26 PM    <DIR>          .
2017-12-19  03:26 PM    <DIR>          ..
2017-12-19  03:26 PM                 0 dir.txt
2008-05-25  03:54 PM         3,102,650 DSC_0001.JPG
2008-05-25  03:55 PM         3,107,741 DSC_0002.JPG
2008-05-25  03:54 PM         3,102,650 DSC_0003.JPG
2008-05-25  03:55 PM         3,107,741 DSC_0004.JPG
               5 File(s)     12,420,782 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  280,903,417,856 bytes free

That is great… except for the fact that if I search my hard drive for a file named DSC_0004.JPG, I might have hundreds of them, depending on how my camera is configured. So what I like to do is rename all of my files from a specific event, like so:

E:\Holiday Snaps> ren DSC_0*.* HolSn*.*

E:\Holiday Snaps> dir

Volume in drive E is SWMI Blue-2T
Volume Serial Number is 9ED7-318E

Directory of E:\Holiday Snaps

2017-12-19  03:30 PM    <DIR>          .
2017-12-19  03:30 PM    <DIR>          ..
2017-12-19  03:26 PM               553 dir.txt
2017-12-19  03:30 PM                 0 dir1.txt
2008-05-25  03:54 PM         3,102,650 HolSn001.JPG
2008-05-25  03:55 PM         3,107,741 HolSn002.JPG
2008-05-25  03:54 PM         3,102,650 HolSn003.JPG
2008-05-25  03:55 PM         3,107,741 HolSn004.JPG
               6 File(s)     12,421,335 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  280,903,417,856 bytes free

Great… I now have my files named HolSn (for HOLiday SNaps).  If I only go on holiday once in my life, I am set.

What I want to be able to do is to rename the files with more descriptive names… like Havana July 20170001.JPG, and so forth… and if I only have four or five pictures, that is easy enough.  With hundreds and often thousands of pictures, it can be ridiculously laborious.  So instead, we are going to use some old Command Prompt/Batch Magic.  Watch this:

E:\Holiday Snaps>for /f %a in (*) do ren “%a” “Havana July 2017 %a”

E:\Holiday Snaps> dir

Volume in drive E is SWMI Blue-2T
Volume Serial Number is 9ED7-318E

Directory of E:\Holiday Snaps

2017-12-19  03:42 PM    <DIR>          .
2017-12-19  03:42 PM    <DIR>          ..
2017-12-19  03:42 PM                 0 dir.txt
2008-05-25  03:54 PM         3,102,650 Havana July 2017 DSC_0001.JPG
2008-05-25  03:55 PM         3,107,741 Havana July 2017 DSC_0002.JPG
2008-05-25  03:54 PM         3,102,650 Havana July 2017 DSC_0003.JPG
2008-05-25  03:55 PM         3,107,741 Havana July 2017 DSC_0004.JPG
               5 File(s)     12,420,782 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  280,903,409,664 bytes free

That is more like it.  So when you want to rename your files in a Command Prompt, just follow those easy steps.

POWERSHELL

Yes, I know… Command Prompt is out, PowerShell is in.  Also simple…

Get-ChildItem | Rename-Item -NewName { “Prefix_” + $_.Name }

This will do the same thing, but you have to be running a version of Windows with PowerShell… so, not Windows XP!

PS E:\Holiday Snaps> ls

    Directory: E:\Holiday Snaps

Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name
—-                ————-         —— —-
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:54 PM        3102650 DSC_0001.JPG
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:55 PM        3107741 DSC_0002.JPG
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:54 PM        3102650 DSC_0003.JPG
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:55 PM        3107741 DSC_0004.JPG

PS E:\Holiday Snaps> Get-ChildItem | Rename-Item -NewName { “Havana July 2017-” + $_.Name }
PS E:\Holiday Snaps> ls

    Directory: E:\Holiday Snaps

Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name
—-                ————-         —— —-
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:54 PM        3102650 Havana July 2017-DSC_0001.JPG
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:55 PM        3107741 Havana July 2017-DSC_0002.JPG
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:54 PM        3102650 Havana July 2017-DSC_0003.JPG
-a—-       2008-05-25   4:55 PM        3107741 Havana July 2017-DSC_0004.JPG

PS E:\Holiday Snaps>

I hope this helps…. now if you don’t mind, for some reason I am thinking I should book a vacation!