Complex batch file renaming in the Finder

Nov 07, '01 07:17:34PM

Contributed by: robg

If you work with batches of files in the Finder and often need to rename them, I'd recommend giving A Better Finder Rename (ABFR) a look. ABFR, a $15 shareware app, offers over 20 different ways of renaming things, including the small snippet shown at left from the "Remove anywhere" choice. Other options include "Replace anywhere within name", "Produce alphabetical list", and "Strip vowels". Each choice brings a different set of options forward. ABFR sits in your dock (or on your desktop) and you activate it by dragging and dropping onto it the files and folders you wish to rename.

I find ABFR ideal for dealing with my digital camera, which gives me lots of well-named files like "DSC0001.JPG", "DSC0002.JPG", etc. With ABFR, a fix is just a drag and drop away. Hopefully, future versions will load as true contextual menus (as in OS 9), but apparently Apple has not made the Finder's contextual menus available to developers (yet?).

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