Renaming Files using Directory Path + Sequential Number

J

JEB

I have close to 175,000 pictures spread across about 20 directories. These
files were accumulated from various sources over the years and when looked at
from the parent directory, duplicate file names abound. I would like to
reorganize these pictures into some usable format and thought about renaming
them base on the directory path name plus a sequential number to initially
eliminate the duplicates.

Could someone tell me 1. - how to do this, OR 2 - is there an available
product that could do this for me.

Thank you.

JEB
 
J

jimmuh

Well, this isn't exactly a topic for this forum -- unless maybe we think of
it in terms of the renaming feature in the Microsoft Office 2007 Picture
Manager. (Sorry, not sure about earlier versions.) It works somewhat the same
way as the multiple file renaming feature in Windows Explorer in Windows XP
and Vista. Highlight multiple pictures, right-click on one of them, choose
rename, go through the dialog. In Explorer you just type in a name and it
automatically renames the file you right-clicked on as "filename" and then
appends parentheses and numbers as in "filename(1)", "filename(2)", etc.
(It's a little dorky, but it works. If you want to have more precise control
over the sequential part, like calling the files
"original_filename-directory_name_001" or something like that, then you'll
have to go to a third party utility.)

You'd either have to go to each of the twenty directories and go through
this, or you could use Exlorer's search function to find all the picture
files. Once the search is complete you would just sort the listing by folder,
then highlight all the files in a folder and rename them, then move to the
next folder, etc.

Could also be done from the CMD prompt with some batch file legerdermain,
but I'm guessing you probably don't want to go that way.
 
J

JEB

Thank you. I didn't know what forum to put it in. My major concern is that
I can organize the picture library in such a way that I can readly move it to
another computer and not loose anything as I need to free up space on my
hard drive. I'll follow your suggestion and do some research ons the
Microsoft Office 2007 Picture Manager.

Thanks again.

JEB
 
J

jimmuh

I meant to suggest backing up the files BEFORE you try a mass-renaming! Heh.

At the very least, test any procedure you come up with on some test files
located in some test folders. If this data is important to you, you should
take every precaution to protect it. It could be a huge problem to try to
figure out how a renaming scheme had gone wrong on such a huge number of
files.

And, now that I think of it, if you actually have 175,000 files located in
twenty directories, you ain't gonna want to deal with them with the Picture
Manager. (It's going to want to do a thumbnail on each one.)

If it were my data I'd think hard about getting a third party utility or
using the CMD prompt and a utility like XXCOPY (third party) or even XCOPY
(Windows utility). They are copying utilties, but they can rename files, too.
The trick is doing it right, and that definitely means practicing on scratch
files before using them on the real data.

Please be careful. Good luck!
 
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