Application - File name changer

English Applications
#1

I need to rename over 14000 pictures, that have been taken over the last decade or so. I have managed to group them according to year. Now I need to get more specific and would like to rename them according to specific cases.

Does anyone know of a application I can use under 10.3 to change the name of large numbers of files in one go. I know that there are a huge number of such apps for windows so I was wondering if there were any good ones for linux.

Thanks.

P.S. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

#2

this thread maybe useful for renaming a batch of photos, but I never tried.

How to rename batches of pictures in Konqueror? - openSUSE Forums

#3

It’s called “rename” :wink: and runs from a terminal. Type “man rename” on how to use it.

#4

On Friday 26 December 2008 15:56, silkmaze wrote:

> I need to rename over 14000 pictures, that have been taken over the last
> decade or so. I have managed to group them according to year. Now I need
> to get more specific and would like to rename them according to specific
> cases.

I find that renaming, using the full date and time from the Exif info
groups images them best. I tend to use a a mask of “YYYMMDD_hhmmss.jpg”,
but you could also go for “YYYMMDD_hhmmss_originalName.jpg” if you don’t
want to loose the info in the original name.

Of course, this only works with images that have the original Exif data in
them.

> Does anyone know of a application I can use under 10.3 to change the
> name of large numbers of files in one go. I know that there are a huge
> number of such apps for windows so I was wondering if there were any
> good ones for linux.

I’ve been messing with a Python script I wrote, but I’d have to dig it out
and tidy it up.

–
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
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#5

On Saturday 27 December 2008 00:30, Rikishi 42 wrote:

>> Does anyone know of a application I can use under 10.3 to change the
>> name of large numbers of files in one go. I know that there are a huge
>> number of such apps for windows so I was wondering if there were any
>> good ones for linux.
>
> I’ve been messing with a Python script I wrote, but I’d have to dig it
> out and tidy it up.

Update: I dug out the stuff I had, and rebuilt a first working script.
Still a bit of a mess, but it renames 15 images per sec. That puts the
treatment of your 14.000 images at about 15:30 min, on my machine.

Now, I prefer to work on a copy, for obvious reasons.
I also like to move the renamed files to an output dir. That means my
script can stop (or fail) and be restarted at any time, without renaming
a file twice. It also means files that can’t be handled stay in their
place.

What I did:

  • I made a linked copy of the originals:
    cp -vrl originals/* work_source/
  • The dir “work_source/” is searched for any file containing Exif tags.
    A date/time stamp is added before the original name.
    The result is moved to “work_output/”, under the original subdirs.
  • Files that are not renamed, stay in “work_source/”.

So a file:
work_source/Marius/DSC00017.JPG
work_output/Marius/20071026_133756__DSC00017.JPG

You could even imagine regrouping all 14000 pictures in 1 dir, using the
script to rename them, before sorting them in a dir per day.

I have to clean this up a bit, as the script only converts 1 file. That
means running it it with a find. I’d rather Python did all the work,
might speed things up a bit.

If this is something you’d like to try, I’ll finish cleaning it up this
WE. Otherwise, it’ll be much later (as my pictures are very well filed,
of course. (not :slight_smile:

–
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Douglas Adams

#6

I followed this link and someone there suggested using digikam. I gave it a try and it worked like a charm.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

I wish you all a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.