Vimv

This command line utility lets you batch rename files from the comfort of your favourite text editor. You specify the files to be renamed as arguments, e.g.

$ vimv *.mp3

The list of files will be opened in the editor specified by the $EDITOR environment variable, one filename per line. Edit the list, save, and exit. The files will be renamed to the edited filenames.

Interface

Run vimv --help to view the command line help:

Usage: vimv [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [ARGUMENTS]

  This utility lets you batch rename files using a text editor.
  Files to be renamed should be supplied as a list of command-line
  arguments, e.g.

    $ vimv *.mp3

  The list of files will be opened in the editor specified by the
  $EDITOR environment variable, one filename per line. Edit the
  list, save, and exit.  The files will be renamed to the edited
  filenames. Directories along the path will be created as required.

  Use the --force flag to overwrite existing files. Existing
  directories will not be overwritten. (If you attempt to overwrite
  a directory the program will exit with an error message and a
  non-zero status code.)

Arguments:
  [files]                   List of files to rename.

Options:
  -e, --editor <name>       Specify the editor to use.

Flags:
  -f, --force               Force overwrite existing files.
  -h, --help                Print this help text.
  -v, --version             Print the version number.

Installation

Vimv is written in Rust — if you have a Rust compiler available you can install it directly from the package index using cargo:

$ cargo install vimv

You can find the source files on Github.

Graphical Editors

If you want to use a graphical editor like VS Code or Sublime Text instead of a terminal editor like Vim then (depending on your operating system) you may need to add a 'wait' flag to the $EDITOR variable to force the editor to block, e.g.

EDITOR="code -w"      # for VS Code
EDITOR="subl -w"      # for Sublime Text
EDITOR="atom -w"      # for Atom

The same flag can be used with the --editor option, e.g.

$ vimv *.mp3 --editor "code -w"