FreeBSD Manual Pages
RENAME(1) User Commands RENAME(1) NAME rename - rename files SYNOPSIS rename [options] expression replacement file... DESCRIPTION rename will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of expression in their name by replacement. OPTIONS -s, --symlink Do not rename a symlink but change where it points. -v, --verbose Show which files were renamed, if any. -n, --no-act Do not make any changes; add --verbose to see what would be made. -a, --all Replace all occurrences of expression rather than only the first one. -l, --last Replace the last occurrence of expression rather than the first one. -o, --no-overwrite Do not overwrite existing files. When --symlink is active, do not over- write symlinks pointing to existing targets. -i, --interactive Ask before overwriting existing files. -h, --help Display help text and exit. -V, --version Display version and exit. WARNING The renaming has no safeguards by default or without any one of the options --no-overwrite, --interactive or --no-act. If the user has permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action without any ques- tions. For example, the result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root in the /lib directory. Always make a backup before running the com- mand, unless you truly know what you are doing. EDGE CASES If the expression is empty, then by default replacement will be added to the start of the filename. With --all, replacement will be inserted in be- tween every two characters of the filename, as well as at the start and end. Normally, only the final path component of a filename is updated. (Or with --symlink, only the final path component of the link.) But if either ex- pression or replacement contains a /, the full path is updated. This can cause a file to be moved between folders. Creating folders, and moving files between filesystems, is not supported. INTERACTIVE MODE As most standard utilities rename can be used with a terminal device (tty in short) in canonical mode, where the line is buffered by the tty and you press ENTER to validate the user input. If you put your tty in cbreak mode however, rename requires only a single key press to answer the prompt. To set cbreak mode, run for example: sh -c 'stty -icanon min 1; "$0" "$@"; stty icanon' rename -i from to files EXIT STATUS 0 all requested rename operations were successful 1 all rename operations failed 2 some rename operations failed 4 nothing was renamed 64 unanticipated error occurred EXAMPLES Given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278, the commands rename foo foo00 foo? rename foo foo0 foo?? will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278. And rename .htm .html *.htm will fix the extension of your html files. Provide an empty string for shortening: rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.* will remove the substring in the filenames. SEE ALSO mv(1) REPORTING BUGS For bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>. AVAILABILITY The rename command is part of the util-linux package which can be down- loaded from Linux Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. util-linux 2.41.2 2025-09-22 RENAME(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | WARNING | EDGE CASES | INTERACTIVE MODE | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | AVAILABILITY
Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rename&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports>