HowTo: Linux Rename Files

To rename files in Linux, you can use the mv command. Here are some examples of how to use mv to rename files:

1. Rename a single file:

To rename a single file, simply use the mv command followed by the current file name and the new file name. For example, to rename a file named “oldfile.txt” to “newfile.txt”, you can use the following command:

2. Rename multiple files with a common pattern:

To rename multiple files that have a common pattern in their names, you can use wildcards. For example, to rename all files in the current directory that end with “.txt” to have the “.bak” extension instead, you can use the following command:

In this command, the * wildcard matches any number of characters, allowing the command to match all files that end with “.txt”.

3. Rename files with a pattern using the rename command:

The rename command can be used to rename files based on a pattern. For example, to rename all files in the current directory that end with “.jpeg” to have the “.jpg” extension instead, you can use the following command:

In this command, the s/\.jpeg$/\.jpg/ part of the command is a regular expression that matches “.jpeg” at the end of the file name and replaces it with “.jpg”.

These are just a few examples of how to rename files in Linux using the mv and rename commands. With these commands, you can quickly and easily rename one or more files on your system.