It’s a question as old as time — or at least it’s one I’ve had for a long time — how to rename a bunch of files at once.
There are all sorts of reasons you might want to rename your files, but logo files, in particular, are host to a number of these problems because there are just so many variations to account for. Maybe you’ve accidentally spelled the client’s name wrong. Perhaps you’ve labeled all of your logo mark files as logotype files by mistake. After a long bout of logo exporting, you might decide that you want to add file dimensions to the end of your logo names. What if you just realized that underscores are bad for the environment, so you decide to switch to dashes instead?!
Changing the names of dozens or even hundreds of logo files is an incredibly wasteful use of your time. That’s why I’m writing this article to show you Mac users how to rename as many files as you want in seconds!
Before I reveal the incredibly simple secret to solving your file naming woes forever and ever, I do want to apologize to my PC readers. I looked, and there just doesn’t seem to be any easy, built-in way to batch rename files on Windows. If you know of anything, please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what it is.
Alright, on with the post.
To batch rename your logo files, just follow these steps:
That’s it. Just repeat this process for all of your edits and you’ll have corrected logo file names in seconds.
There are some other renaming options in the dropdown selector that you might find particularly useful. Use the “Add Text” option to insert additional text at the beginning or end of every file. This is super useful for adding pixel dimensions at the end of your file names or the client’s name to the beginning of your file names.
Use the “Format” option to automatically number, count, or date your files as well.
The method I’ve described in this article is an excellent way to rename many files very quickly, but there are still some flaws — It doesn’t work for PC, and it doesn’t account for the case (lowercase, uppercase, camel case) of your file names. On the other hand, Logo Package Express is the magical extension I’ve created for Adobe Illustrator that automatically generates, names, and exports every logo file your client needs in a matter of minutes. With Logo Package Express, you can customize your file and folder naming conventions to your heart’s content and be guaranteed to export an error-free set of files. If you do happen to make a mistake in the setup, you can simply change your settings in the extension and re-export. All your incorrect files will be replaced like magic.
