rename

Rename multiple files. Note: this page refers to the command from the util-linux package. For the Perl version, see file-rename or perl-rename. Warning: This command has no safeguards and will overwrite files without prompting. More information: https://manned.org/rename.

• Rename files using simple substitutions (substitute 'foo' with 'bar' wherever found):

rename foo bar *

• Dry-run - display which renames would occur without performing them:

rename -vn foo bar *

• Do not overwrite existing files:

rename -o foo bar *

• Change file extensions:

rename .ext .bak *.ext

• Prepend "foo" to all filenames in the current directory:

rename '' 'foo' *

• Rename a group of increasingly numbered files zero-padding the numbers up to 3 digits:

rename foo foo00 foo? && rename foo foo0 foo??