Removing Barcodes using the Rename Command

Rename: General Use

Rename is a super useful tool for renaming files and folders in bulk. It’s pretty tricky to use, but here’s a quick explanation of a simple use case

Installation is simple, just run brew install rename
In this example we will rename all files with the extension .jpeg to have the extension .jpg instead.
First you need to cd into a the folder you want to rename, like this:
- cd Path/To/Directory
Then run this command
```
  rename -n 's/\.jpeg/\.jpg/' *
```
The -n flag will run in dry-run mode, meaning it will tell you what it will do before doing it.
s/\.jpeg/\.jpg/ tells rename to look at the standard in, and replace “.jpeg” with “.jpg” in any file it finds
the * tells rename to look at every file in the working directory.
Once you run the command in dry-run mode it’ll show you what changes it will make. If you’re happy with that run the command again without the -n flag and it’ll actually rename the files:
```
  rename 's/\.jpeg/\.jpg/' *
```
The above example just runs on files in a single folder. If you want to run the command on a bunch of recursive directories you’ll need to use a more complex command:
First you need to cd into a the folder you want to rename.

Then run this command

  find . -type f -name '*.jpeg' -print0 | xargs -0 rename -n 's/\.jpeg/\.jpg/

This part: find . -type f -name '*.jpeg' -print0 | xargs -0 performs a find in the working directory for any file ending with “.jpeg”. Then it passes the file path to rename, which runs in dry-run mode
If you’re happy with what dry-run mode comes up with, you can run it for real without the -n flag
```
  find . -type f -name '*.jpeg' -print0 | xargs -0 rename 's/\.jpeg/\.jpg/
```
In both examples we’re just replacing .jpeg with .jpeg with this command: s/\.jpeg/\.jpg/

Keep in mind you can replace any string with any other string. It’s very useful!

Removing Barcodes

rename can very easily remove barcodes from files names. However, it’s very dangerous because you can easily mangle files names with this command.

First, you need to make sure you remove all hidden files from the working directory.
cd into whatever directory you want to rename the files in
From here you can run the following command to remove the barcodes (first 12 characters) from every file in the folder
```
  rename -n 's/.{12}(.*)/$1/' *
```
That command actually runs in dry-run mode. Remove the -n to run it for real if you’re happy with the projected results of the dry-run
Make sure you don’t run this command twice! It doesn’t know to remove barcodes, it just knows to remove the first twelve characters in a filename, so be very careful

You can read the manual here