How to rename multiple files in Linux

From time to time, we may need to rename multiple files in Linux. It is quite frustrating to find out that mv old_name* new_name* is not working actually.

So after a few trials and errors, I’ve got the following script, which is really time saver for me.

This is what my files look like before the script.

$ ls -lth
total 12K
-rw-r–r– 1 username group 6 Aug 26 01:38 old_name_3.txt
-rw-r–r– 1 username group 6 Aug 26 01:38 old_name_2.txt
-rw-r–r– 1 username group 5 Aug 26 01:38 old_name_1.txt

I want to rename all those old_name to new_name. Here is the script to do that:

$ for nn in `ls -1 old*`; do NAME=`echo $nn | sed -e ‘s/^old_name/new_name/g’`; mv $nn $NAME; done

This is the aftermath.

$ ls -lth
total 12K
-rw-r–r– 1 username group 6 Aug 26 01:38 new_name_3.txt
-rw-r–r– 1 username group 6 Aug 26 01:38 new_name_2.txt
-rw-r–r– 1 username group 5 Aug 26 01:38 new_name_1.txt

I hope this script will be helpful for you as well. As always, feel free to leave a comment if you need any help.

Tags:

No related posts.