Renaming files Vim-style

I’ve previously written about renaming files with the rename utility. rename uses sed-like syntax with regular expressions to rename files, which are very powerful, but can be a bit tricky to get right.

I recently came across vimv, which is a utility (written in bash) to let you use the full power of Vim to rename files. As a vim user being able to use the same patterns I would use when writing code is very appealing.

It's a great idea, and it turns out that this is also not a new idea. Many other tools have very similar abilities as pointed out by many great replies to the original tweet. Some of tools that offer this ability include (in order of discovery) the aforementioned vimv; three different file managers: ranger, nnn, and vifm; vidir; and qmv, from renameutils (around since 2001!).

We are spoilt for choice! I already use nnn so I will be making use of it's "batch rename" feature on my file server. For other cases I think I'll be reaching for qmv as it's very mature, and simple to use. Try out one that works for you.