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I used to rename file in Linux via a rename command:

rename 's/old_pattern/new_pattern/g' *glob

Is there something similar in Mac OS X (Snow Leopard)?

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The following article explains how to install rename on Mac OS X: macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050630022203488 –  Paul R Jun 15 '10 at 11:05
The backticks are not showing up in your comment - you should probably add this as an answer or edit your question to include your solution. –  Paul R Jun 15 '10 at 12:05
The best quick solution I've ever found has been using the built-in Automator. Check out this article for easy step by step help: tuaw.com/2008/11/11/… –  nilay Jun 20 '10 at 9:48
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10 Answers

up vote 16 down vote accepted

Clumsy me:

for i in *.yourfiles; do mv "$i" "`echo $i | sed 's/old/new/g'`"; done 

And if you want to use it like I do often this way:

rename 's/old/new/' *.files

I recommend to use this litte script in ~/bin/rename:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
for i in $@; do mv $i `echo "$i" | sed $SUBSEXPR`; done
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your script doesn't work for me "rename ACDC AC-DC ACDC*" result-> "ssed: can't read ACDC: No such file or directory" , I installed rename util from linux and now it works anwyay –  holms Jan 30 '11 at 16:59
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With Homebrew, a package manager for OS X:

brew install rename 

Then you can run the same rename commands as in Linux.

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Use the power of ZSH wisely (type zsh in the terminal if you are one of those poor souls who don't use it by default):

autoload zmv
zmv '(*).htm' '$1.html'

ZMV follows MMV syntax.

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but does that also allow regex replacement? This seems to be just some kind of enhanced shell globbing. –  math Jun 15 '10 at 15:37
@brubelsabs: Yes, zmv can do regexp replacement. For files that match *user*.html, change the extension to .html and change all occurrences of rc to final: zmv '(*user*).htm' '${1//rc/final}.html' @ghoppe: I think the zmv example in your answer needs -w or parentheses around its wildcard. –  Chris Johnsen Jun 15 '10 at 18:58
I really like this suggestion because you don't need to install anything extra on a Mac (like brew), but it does allow you to use the easy mmv like syntax. –  Hay Sep 16 '13 at 15:15
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There are various version of rename. It looks like you are looking for the Perl-based one.

One version of this utility comes with the File::Rename Perl module. You can install it with something like sudo cpan -i File::Rename.

Or, you could go with the rename from Debian's perl package. It is just a single file to download. Put it where ever you like and chmod it so that it is executable.

An alternative is the zmv tool that comes with zsh. It does not have the same syntax, but it does come with your OS and it can easily take care of many of the common cases.

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the perl rename is what this question shows as an example. –  quack quixote Jun 15 '10 at 12:49
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You can try to install MacPorts and install the renameutils package:

renameutils @0.10.0 (sysutils)

renameutils is a set of programs designed to make renaming files faster and less cumbersome

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this package don't have the "rename" command. –  juanpablo Jun 20 '10 at 21:38
i didn't say that it does. qmv looks like it does the job. –  lajuette Jun 21 '10 at 5:43
qmv is a great tool, while a bit too much work for simple regex renames, it's fantastic for intelligently naming and moving big numbers of arbitrary files –  sapht Sep 21 '12 at 16:06
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On Macs I use Aristotle Pagaltzis's freely available rename, which like Debian's is Perl-based. You can get it here. Or visit here to read it first - always a good idea.

You need to place that somewhere in your $PATH and make it executable (chmod +x rename) and then you're good to go.

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the equivalent command in renamer (cross-platform) is

$ renamer --regex --find 'old_pattern' --replace 'new_pattern' *glob
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If you are looking for a GUI, try Name Mangler. It has a "preview" feature that shows what will happen if you follow through with the renaming.

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This shouldn't be difficult but apparently it is. Example, I want to rename all file's extension from aiff to aifc.

find . -iname "*.aiff" -exec bash -c 'mv "$0" "${0%\.aiff}.aifc"' {} \;
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If you like Sublime Text's multiselect you could use it with qmv:

qmv --editor="/usr/bin/s3 -w" files

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