Bash Rename File Extensions

From Luke Jackson

Summary

This is a simple function to quickly rename many files using Bash. It can be very useful for renaming pictures, mp3s, and movies.

Supported Operating Systems

• Mac OS X and Terminal
• Unix
• Linux

Requirements

• Bash

Syntax

Below is a simple example for renaming uppercase jpg files to lowercase:

for i in *.JPG; do mv $i ${i%%.JPG}.jpg; done

If you would like to use this function for other types of files here is a basic template:

for i in *.<EXISTING_EXT>; do mv $i ${i%%.<EXISTING_EXT>}.<RESULTING_EXT>; done

Another example

for i in *.JPG; do j=`echo $i | cut -d . -f 1`; j=$j"_from_mark.jpg"; echo $j; mv $i $j; done;

String Operations

for i in *; do mv $i ${i#1440.jpg.*}.jpg; done