Renaming a file in Windows is an easy and straightforward process. To begin, open the folder or directory that contains the file you want to rename. Right-click on the file and choose “Rename” from the dropdown menu. This will open an editable text field of the file’s current name. You can then type in your desired new file name in place of the existing name. After typing the new name, press “Enter” on your keyboard to save the changes.
In some versions of Windows, such as Windows 10, you can also rename a file by selecting it, pressing “F2” on your keyboard, and typing your new file name.
Be aware that file names cannot contain forward slashes (/) or backslashes (\), and they cannot contain space characters at the beginning or end of the file name. Further, Windows limits individual file names to 255 characters, including the file extension. For example, a file named “MyVeryLongFileName.txt” can be up to 247 characters long.
If you are renaming multiple files at once, you can use a technique called “bulk renaming”. This allows you to rename multiple files at once by selecting them all, right-clicking on one of them, and selecting “Rename” from the menu. When you do this, the text field which appears will contain a number of placeholder characters (such as “?”) followed by the existing file name. These placeholder characters identify each file’s position in the group. By modifying the text in the text field, you can change the name for all of the files in the group. The placeholder characters will increment with the position of each file in the group, so you only need to edit the placeholder characters that appear first in the field.
You can also add additional words, numbers, or labels to your bulk renaming options. These can be added before, after, or in between the placeholder characters. For example, if you wanted to add the words “MyFiles_” before the placeholder characters, you could enter “MyFiles_??” into the text field. This would renumber the files in the group while maintaining the original names, but prefixing them with “MyFiles_”.
If you are working with a large number of files, you may find it easier to use a third-party file renaming utility. These programs allow you to easily apply complicated naming conventions to a group of files in a single operation. Popular renaming utilities for Windows include Bulk Rename Utility, ReNamer, and Advanced Renamer.