NAME¶

rename - rename files

SYNOPSIS¶

rename [options] expression replacement file...

DESCRIPTION¶

rename will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of expression in their name by replacement.

OPTIONS¶

-s, --symlink

Do not rename a symlink but its target.

-v, --verbose

Show which files were renamed, if any.

-n, --no-act

Do not make any changes.

-o, --no-overwrite

Do not overwrite existing files. When --symlink is active, do not overwrite symlinks pointing to existing targets.

-V, --version

Display version information and exit.

-h, --help

Display help text and exit.

EXAMPLES¶

Given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278, the commands

rename foo foo00 foo?
rename foo foo0 foo??

will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278. And

rename .htm .html *.htm

will fix the extension of your html files. Provide an empty string for shortening:

rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*

will remove the substring in the filenames.

WARNING¶

The renaming has no safeguards except the --no-act option. If the user has permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action without any questions. For example, the result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root in the /lib directory. Always make a backup before running the command, unless you truly know what you are doing.

EXIT STATUS¶

SEE ALSO¶

mv(1)

AVAILABILITY¶

The rename command is part of the util-linux package and is available from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.