Bulk file rename is not very good -- is there an alternative?

General Help
1

I'm used to bulk file renaming capabilites of macOS Finder and find performing the same tasks in Zorin to be clunky and time wasting.

For example, I have a bunch of .pdf files:

this.is.one.file.pdf
this.is.another.file.pdf
here.is.yet.another.file.pdf

I select these files > rename > Find & Replace Text and I enter a . in the 'Existing Text' box and enter a space in the 'Replace With' box everything looks fine except it also removes the period denoting the file extension.

For example, this.is.one.file.pdf becomes this is one file pdf instead of this is one file.pdf.

How can fix this most annoying and bizarre bulk file renaming behavior? It's driving me nuts and causing me to spend way too much time re-adding the . denoting the file extension back into each file name thus making the entire concept of bulk file renaming a non-starter.

If there's no fix, is there another option I can use?

2

Hello,
It will take two steps but you can do the following (please omit " in actual operation):

  1. replace "." with space
  2. replace " pdf" with ".pdf"
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3

There are many command line (CLI) methods for bulk renaming.
I use Zorin OS Lite (XFCE), so am far more familiar with Thunar Bulk Rename tool; a GUI file batcher.

You can install thunar:

sudo apt install thunar

Then run the Thunar Bulk Rename tool from the app menu or with the command thunar -B

4

Obviously , this will replace every dot with space

U shouldn't find another way to

U can just replace " pdf" with ".pdf"

This is the best way to do and also very simple

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5

I'm not in front of my computer to test this, but won't it also leave a space before the .pdf file extension? For example:

this is one file pdf becomes this is one file .pdf (instead of this is one file.pdf).

6

I tested on Zorin 16.

Step 1

this.is.one.file.pdf -> this is one file pdf

Step2
this is one file pdf -> this is one file.pdf

There is no space before period in the end result.

*Please make sure that the original text (pdf) is preceded by a space.

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7

I would just like to say - This makes no sense to me.
In Nemo and in Thunar, renaming the file renames it to exactly what I rename it to. It doesn't take liberties and change it.
Gnome...

8

I would like to dedicate this family joke of ours to the GNOME developers.

pourquoi faire simple quand on peut faire compliqué
(why make it simple when one can make it complicated)

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