Microsoft today has announced the release of PowerToys version 0.12. As usual, the release is available for download as an MSI installer from Microsoft on GitHub. This time, however, it comes with a new utility called PowerRename to help you batch rename files in Windows 10.
As the name suggests, PowerRename is a Windows Shell Context menu extension. When configured in PowerToys, it will add a new PowerRename function in the right-click menu within most apps like the File Explorer. Once this option is clicked, there are some simple search and replace options available to bulk rename files. You even can redo batch renames, if needed.
For extra comfort, there’s also a preview area to show how items will be renamed. Specific options to remove or exclude certain things from the rename operation are available too. Other options available from PowerRename include the following.
- Use Regular Expressions: If checked, the Search field will be interpreted as a regular expression. If not checked, the Search field will be used as a text to be replaced with the text in the Replace field.
- Match All Occurrences: If checked, all matches of the text in Search field will be replaced with the Replace text. Otherwise, only the first instance of the Search for text in the item will be replaced (left to right).
- Exclude Files: Files will not be included in the operation.
- Exclude Folders: Folders will not be included in the operation.
- Exclude Subfolder Items: Items within folders will not be included in the operation. By default, all subfolder items are included.
- Enumerate Items: Appends a numeric suffix to file names that were modified in the operation. Ex: foo.jpg -> foo (1).jpg
- Item Name Only: Only the file name portion (not the file extension) is modified by the operation. Ex: txt.txt -> NewName.txt
- Item Extension Only: Only the file extension portion (not the file name) is modified by the operation. Ex: txt.txt -> txt.NewExtension
More advanced users will be able to enjoy Regular Expressions define a search pattern for text. According to Microsoft, these can be used to ” search, edit and manipulate text. These can be seen below.
- .* Match: To Match all the text in the name
- ^foo: To Match text that begins with “foo”
- bar$: To Match text that ends with “bar”
- ^foo bar$: To Match text that begins with “foo” and ends with “bar”
- .+?(?=bar): To Match everything up to “bar”
- foo[\s\S]*bar: To Match everything between “foo” and “bar”
This release also brings improvements to FancyZones. Multi-monitor aware, targeted globalization nugs, and other high priority issues have all been fixed. You can learn more about PowerToys in our featured piece here.
