Bulk Rename Utility Safe
Stayce Cawthorn
In this demo, all instances of the file name "foo" are replaced with "foobar". Since all of the files are uniquely named, this would have taken a long time to complete manually one-by-one. PowerRename enables a single bulk rename. Notice that the Explorer's "Undo Rename" (Ctrl+Z) command makes it possible to undo the last change.
After selecting files in Windows File Explorer, right-click and select Rename with PowerRename (which will appear only if enabled in PowerToys). The selected items will be displayed, along with search and replace values, a list of options, and a preview pane displaying results of the search and replace values entered.
If selected, the Search value will be interpreted as a regular expression (regex). The Replace value can also contain regex variables (see examples below). If cleared, the Search value will be interpreted as plain text to be replaced with the text in the Replace field.
The creation date and time attributes of a file can be used in the Replace with text by entering a variable pattern according to the table below. Selecting the tool-tip in the Replace with field allows you to view and select from the supported patterns.
Regular Expressions define a search pattern for text. They can be used to search, edit and manipulate text. The pattern defined by the regular expression may match once, several times, or not at all for a given string. PowerRename uses the ECMAScript grammar, which is common amongst modern programming languages.
To use the Boost library instead of the standard library, select the Use Boost library option in the PowerToys settings. It enables extended features, like lookbehind, which are not supported by the standard library.
This utility is part of the Microsoft PowerToys utilities for power users. It provides a set of useful utilities to tune and streamline your Windows experience for greater productivity. To install PowerToys, see Installing PowerToys.
Dropbox response was: "interesting indeed". Then they are like; let us learn what you have uncovered that we still don't know. Like, let's go out there and jump through the hoops together to confirm if the files are named based on when the files are created (recording starts) or when they are last modified (recording stops). What difference does it make? Just stop renaming people's files!?
They closed the question for further comments so that anyone who feels the same way about this Dropbox misbehavior can start their own discussion about it, like I'm doing right now, and we can all pretend that no one really wants this "feature", because the discussion activity is low and no one is voting.
They even go as far as closing supposedly "shared ideas" for lack of support by other members of the community of users, before it even has a chance to reach the right team at Dropbox, Inc. With so many filters along the way, I would be surprised if any Dropbox features is ever a direct result of user input. Dropbox has its own fixed ideas of how to do things, and that's how it's going to stay. Like it and use it, or don't like it and move on to using something else.
Allow such ideas to stay open for a good while and see what happens. You will never get enough votes if you keep closing ideas and keep closing discussions. You will always blame it on lack of interest by other users, and users will keep creating new topics for the same old discussions, and keep sharing the same old ideas without it ever being forwarded to the right team at Dropbox, Inc. It's so obvious right now that you are genuinely not interested in what we users have to say or what we think of your apps and services. Not when you keep shutting us off, closing our topics of discussion and keep closing our "shared" ideas before they can gather enough votes and traction, and before they ever reach the right team. You're doing this on purpose. And that's OK. It's your product and your service. I just wanted to call you out and let you know that I can see through your charade and I don't agree with your practices.
There is a way to set up naming conventions with Dropbox, but it does not apply to the mobile app and camera uploads. It applies only to the web and the desktop app (the option links back to the web for setting it up, there is no interface for it within the desktop app itself).
Despite this advanced and elaborate way to exactly specify how to name and organize files in Dropbox (as long as you're not using the mobile app), and despite having several preset naming rules to choose from, having no rule at all is not a selectable rule or option.
I am very disappointed with Dropbox right now. It feels like with each passing year I have less and less reason to use Dropbox. You have already reduced the number of devices allowed to sync from 5 to 3 (if I remember correctly) on the free plan. I wouldn't actually mind getting a premium plan if you did things a little differently and you got rid of the excess bulk you have invented in recent years like Paper, Transfer, Vault, Spaces, and what not, the list keeps growing. Dropbox has moved well beyond what used to be its core business idea, and it's far from working ideally, and I don't want to be paying for the things I don't intend to use.
There is only one sensible way to do this. You either keep device-given filenames, or you let users do this properly and willingly, where you allow them to specify if and how they want the renaming to be done, for all the same reasons both you and I, and others, have already mentioned previously. We keep repeating ourselves but Dropbox is not hearing our plea.
I don't want to imagine what I would do if something like this happened to my photo collection. For me, it's not a matter of taste or preference, and this is what Dropbox doesn't seem to understand. It's a matter of function. For example, my Adobe Lightroom database depends on these file names. In the past, I have had to locate and reconnect old files to the database, and it was no fun. Weeding out duplicate files is another solid reason why you might want to stick to one naming convention, preferably the one that came long before Dropbox was around.
In my opinion, no app should ever rename or otherwise alter user files and user data without prompting the user to do so. But we're living in a time where data processing and user interactions are increasingly more and more automated. Users serve merely to pay the bills for various subscription plans, everything else is taken care of by the brains behind the various companies. (Unless those brains are replaced by artificial intelligence, then it's an automated company.) Other times still, their subscriptions or "free" services are paid for by their data.
I have added him to my OneDrive subscription, so he will have a premium service, free of charge, that's just as good as Dropbox. But the thing is, Dropbox saved him once when his old Galaxy phone just died one day, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason. It still had some battery charge in it when he left it to charge up, and minutes later when he came back to check the status, the phone was no longer responding. It was completely dead. Thankfully he had Camera Upload enabled in Dropbox, so all the photos and videos were safe in the cloud. Samsung took care of the rest with its own cloud, for things like contacts, messages, etc. So when he ordered the latest Galaxy phone he could simply restore all the data. He is therefore very grateful to Dropbox and reluctant to "drop" (let go of) the Dropbox.
This story just shows what an immense value that Camera Upload feature can have! The only issue is, it has now become my job to consolidate all his different "Dropbox, Dropbox (2), Dropbox (3), ..." folders into one, and then merge everything with his old photo collection that's named differently. We're talking about some 2000 files in his Dropbox folders. He was constantly running out of space on Dropbox, so he kept moving those files out to the desktop on the computer, to make room for new photos. Now he has several of those. He's not very technical and so he still doesn't fully understand how this cloud thing works. I was going to buy a Dropbox premium subscription for him, to make it easy on him, giving him a lot more room to play around with. But it's difficult to buy something in someone else's name. And since I have decided to transition to OneDrive, it made more sense that I help him do the same.
So again, thanks for sharing your view and thanks for the tip about Rename Master! I am still hopeful that Dropbox will do the right thing and either allow users to disable this in the settings or expand on this idea (fully implement it) and allow users to make their own naming rules.
Why, Dropbox, does everything have to be so corporate? Corporate, in the sense that Dropbox functions don't make sense, so they need to be explained by tech employees. Often to perfectly intelligent and sometimes very geeky customers --- let's raise our hands!
I can't believe they still have not fixed this. Unbelievable! That proves me right! They don't want to. They don't have to. So they don't. As simple as that. Good thing I no longer use Dropbox. But I keep getting notifications by e-mail from people that like and comment on this topic. So the problem is still there, and it's still relevant. But Dropbox doesn't care. According to a recent newsletter from February, they are rolling out new toys like "Dropbox Sign" and "DocSend". (I have an idea of what that is, but will likely never need it, and there are likely millions of users who will never use that.) They spread themselves thin by focusing their attention on building these complex new toys that no one asked for, instead of getting the simple things done right. Interesting company... this "Dropbox".
You may look at this new development like "Dropbox Sign" and think the company is growing up, it's finally crawling out of its blue box and thinking outside the box. But I look at this and think it's a company that no longer knows who they are. The whole product offering feels much more bloated and confusing. What started out as a USB flash drive on the web, is now everything but that. For God's sake, they can't even get the file names right! Right? If I copy my files from a mobile phone to a USB flash drive, using a USB OTG cable, I know my file names will not change. But you can't get that with Dropbox. They just have to change up your file names, for your uncalled "convenience". They have all sort of "smartness" built into the app now.
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