Batch File Renaming with Windows PowerShell

I have been in situations where I needed to batch rename a lot of file. There are a lot of tool you can find on internet that can do this. But why go through all those software when you have one option available in windows ready for you to use.

Say Hello to PowerShell. To open it just type "powershell" in command prompt or in start menu.

Here are a few things you can easily do with powershell

Change File Extension

Have some .log whom you want to change to .txt? Just run the following command -

dir *.jpeg | rename-item -newname {  $_.name  -replace ".log",".txt"  }

dir command gets the list of files in the current directory. The | (pipe) character passes this list to rename-item command which takes each of the file and replaces it's extension

Appending File Extension

You can append file extension to multiple files which don't have file extension in their name

dir | rename-item -newname  { $_.Name +".jpg" }

Rename File With Increasing Number

This one's a bit complicated than the other two. It uses a variable to rename the files.

dir *.jpg | ForEach-Object  -begin { $count=1 }  -process { rename-item $_ -NewName "image$count.jpg"; $count++ }