RENAME(1)

📦
version 2.41.5 · 6 versions
, in debian trixie

✨ RENAME(1) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to rename from the User Commands girlies 💅 this is the manual page for it, and yes it's the util-linux one, not that other imposter, we'll get to that.

🌸 NAME 🌸

rename — rename files. that's it. that's the whole job. she renames files 💖

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

rename [options] expression replacement file...

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically: rename will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of expression in their name by replacement.

first one only. not all of them. we'll talk about that in a sec, don't worry 🫶

💖 OPTIONS 💖

  • -s, --symlink — do not rename a symlink itself, but change where it points instead. so like, the little arrow gets redirected, not the link 🧚
  • -v, --verbose — show which files were renamed, if any. receipts, basically. she tells you what she did ✨
  • -n, --no-act — do not make any changes. nothing happens. add --verbose to see what would have been made. it's giving dress rehearsal 👑
  • -a, --all — replace all occurrences of expression rather than only the first one. go girl, get every single one 💅
  • -l, --last — replace the last occurrence of expression rather than the first one. opposite energy, still valid 🌈
  • -o, --no-overwrite — do not overwrite existing files. and when --symlink is active, do not overwrite symlinks pointing to existing targets either. protective queen 🛡️
  • -i, --interactive — ask before overwriting existing files. she checks in first, consent matters 💖
  • -h, --help — display help text and exit.
  • -V, --version — display version and exit.

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

okay bestie, sit down, this one is serious 😭

the renaming has no safeguards by default, or without any one of the options --no-overwrite, --interactive or --no-act. if the user has permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action without any questions.

for example, the result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root in the /lib directory. 💀

always make a backup before running the command, unless you truly know what you are doing. like, fr fr. no cap. back it up. 🙈

🌟 EDGE CASES 🌟

if the expression is empty, then by default replacement will be added to the start of the filename. but with --all, replacement will be inserted in between every two characters of the filename, as well as at the start and end. yeah. every gap. she's thorough ✨

normally, only the final path component of a filename is updated. (or with --symlink, only the final path component of the link.) but if either expression or replacement contains a /, the full path is updated. this can cause a file to be moved between folders. creating folders, and moving files between filesystems, is not supported. so like, don't expect her to build you a directory, she won't 😤

🧚 INTERACTIVE MODE 🧚

as most standard utilities, rename can be used with a terminal device (tty in short) in canonical mode, where the line is buffered by the tty and you press ENTER to validate the user input.

if you put your tty in cbreak mode however, rename requires only a single key press to answer the prompt. iconic. one tap and done 💅

to set cbreak mode, run for example:

sh -c 'stty -icanon min 1; "$0" "$@"; stty icanon' rename -i from to files

👑 EXIT STATUS 👑

  • 0 — all requested rename operations were successful. slay 🎉
  • 1 — all rename operations failed. oh no 😭
  • 2 — some rename operations failed. a mixed bag, we don't love that 🫠
  • 4 — nothing was renamed. she showed up and did absolutely nothing 💀
  • 64 — unanticipated error occurred. mystery behaviour, not the fun kind 🙈

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278, the commands

rename foo foo00 foo?
rename foo foo0 foo??

will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278. yes the zero-padding math works out, trust ✨

and

rename .htm .html *.htm

will fix the extension of your html files. glow-up for your file extensions 💅

provide an empty string for shortening:

rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*

will remove the substring in the filenames. bye bye, substring 🦋

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

for bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>. tell them everything, bestie, they wanna know 🫶

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

the rename command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

util-linux 2.41.5 🌸 2026-06-16 — that's the version and the date, mwah, love that for her, and love that for you too. go rename something responsibly, bestie 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅

📦 where this page comes from