Renamer FAQs

A: The latest version of Renamer requires OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later. If you're still running 10.5 Leopard you can download an older version from here.

A: With version 4 we decided it was time to give Renamer4Mac not just a shiny new interface but also a simpler, crisper name. We believe that Renamer captures the essence of our application: an elegant, easy-to-use file renamer.

A: To make renaming as fast as possible, Renamer by default uses a system rename function. Although fast, this has the disadvantage that it causes icons of the renamed files (for example those on your Desktop) to be rearranged.

If you want to keep your icons arranged as they are:

1. Choose Renamer > Preferences
2. From "Rename with" choose "Finder"

Note that for renaming many files this is noticeably slower than the System option.

A: Please follow the same steps as in How do I prevent Renamer from rearranging my icons? above.

A: To rename hidden files you first need to get Finder to show them:

1. In Finder go to the Applications > Utilities folder
2. Double-click Terminal.app
3. Type the following and then press return
   defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
4. Type the following and then press return
   killall Finder

Now you can rename your hidden files in Renamer:

1. Drag in the hidden files now visible in Finder
2. Make sure "Filename and Suffix" is selected from Renamer's action menu
3. Rename files as usual

Once you're finished you can restore Finder to hide hidden files again:

1. Open Terminal.app again as described in Steps 1-2 in the first paragraph
2. Type the following and then press return
   defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false

A: Yes.

For Renamer version 4.0.1 and later you can capture groups of a string with (...) and then backreference the groups with $1, $2, ... where 1 is the first group and so on.

For example if you want to rename files "img_001.jpg", "img_002.jpg", "img_00n.jpg" to "01 - Photo.jpg", "02 - Photo.jpg", 0n - Photo.jpg":

1. Click Search & Replace
2. In "Search for:" enter "img_0(\d\d)"
3. In "Replace with:" enter "\1 - Photo"
4. Select the "Regular expression" tick box
5. Select "Name only"

Note: for Renamer version 4.0 and earlier you can backreference with \1, \2, ...