PowerShell Command To Bulk Rename Files Sequentially

Question

I am trying to make batch file naming easier for my end users. In photographing our locations, we can sometimes have only 1 photo or 500 depending on the size of the location. The code below works beautifully to bulk rename our photos based on how many files are in the directory:

$prefix = "[SomePrefix]" $files = Get-ChildItem $id = 1 $files | foreach { Rename-Item -Path $_.fullname -NewName ( $prefix + ((($id++).tostring()).padleft(($files.count.tostring()).length) -replace ' ','0' ) + $_.extension) }

The code pads the photo file name with leading zeroes based on the number of files in the directory, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 if the total amount is less than 9 files; 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 if the total amount of files is between 10 and 99; 001, 002, 003, 004, 005 if the total amount of files is between 100 and 999.

I need to modify this code so that it ALWAYS retains 3 leading zeroes 001, 002, 003, 004, 005 no matter the number of files in the directory. However, I do need the code to recurse through the existing directory so I can eliminate users having to organize their photos into different folders based on the number (0-9; 10-99; 100-999) and running separate lines of codes for each.

Example photo file name convention: PREFIX_001.jpg

Can anyone tell me how to modify the above code to suit my needs?

colsw · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-16 16:44:19Z

PadLeft isn't needed here.

.ToString("000") will cause the number to be padded to 3 digits.

see the page on number formatting for some more details here

you could adjust your code to always pad to the minimum required number of digits by doing this:

$Prefix = "[SomePrefix]" $Files = Get-ChildItem $PadTo = '0'*$Files.Count.ToString().Length $ID = 1 $Files | ForEach { Rename-Item -LiteralPath $_.fullname -NewName ($prefix + ($id++).tostring($PadTo) + $_.extension) }

this creates a string $PadTo which is just a number of 0's depending on how many files are in your directory, if you have 100-999 files it will have 3 0's, anything above or below will be 4,5, etc. to match.

Thanks for your assistance! I tried your modified code but this still requires the end user to organize their photos and modify the $PadTo manually. I need a code that will rename photos 1-9 with 3 leading zeroes, photos 10-99 with 1 leading zero, and photo 100-999 as is. Does that make sense or am I not understanding?
@user63471 can you add -recurse to the Get-Childitem call and do it like that? Much easier than checking individuallt, you can also just set PadTo to "000" to always have it passed to 3 digits regardless. Which seems to be what you want.

Maximilian Burszley · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-16 17:49:26Z

I'd recommend being careful about square brackets as that can be interpreted as a wildcard of sorts.

$Prefix = '[SomePrefix]' $Path = '.' $Folders = Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $Path -Directory -Recurse ForEach ($Folder in $Folders) { $Counter = 0 Get-ChildItem $Folder -File | ForEach-Object { Rename-Item $_.FullName -NewName "${Prefix}_$($Counter.ToString('000'))$($_.Extension)" $Counter++ } }

This solution will recursively rename all files in the directories based on the definition of $Path in the Prefix_001.ext format

Keith Miller · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-05 11:26:55Z

Rename-Item can take pipeline input, so there's no need for ForEach looping.

In addition, piping FileInfo objects to the Cmdlet eliminates the need to consider whether -Path or -LiteralPath is required to avoid errors:

$Prefix = '[SomePrefix]' $PadWidth = ([String](($Files = Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse).Count)).Length $Format = "${Prefix}_{0:d$PadWidth}{1}" [ref]$i = 1 $Files | Rename-Item -NewName { $format -f $i.Value++ , $_.Extension }

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