A command line utility for batch-renaming files.
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.
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 and the package on crates.io.
Run vimv --help to view the command line help:
Usage: vimv [files]
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.
Vimv supports cycle-renaming. You can safely rename A to B, B to
C, and C to A in a single operation.
Use the --force flag to overwrite existing files that aren't part
of a renaming cycle. (Existing directories are never overwritten.
If you attempt to overwrite a directory the program will exit with
an error message and a non-zero status code.)
You can delete a file by 'renaming' it to a blank line, but only
if the --delete flag has been specified. Deleted files are
moved to the system's trash/recycle bin.
If the --git flag is specified then git will be used to rename or
delete any files which are being tracked by git. (Note that this
bypasses the recycle bin for deleted files.)
Arguments:
[files] List of files to rename.
Options:
-e, --editor <name> Specify the editor to use.
Flags:
-d, --delete Enable file deletion.
-f, --force Overwrite existing files.
-g, --git Use git for git-tracked files.
-h, --help Print this help text.
-q, --quiet Only report errors.
-v, --version Print the version number.
Vimv simply ignores any filenames that haven't been changed so you don't have to be overly fussy about specifying its input. You can run:
$ vimv *
to get a full listing of a directory's contents, change just the items you want, and Vimv will ignore the rest.
Vimv supports cycle-renaming. You can safely rename A to B, B to C, and C to A in a single operation.
You can delete a file by 'renaming' it to a blank line, but only if the --delete flag has been specified. Deleted files are moved to the system's trash/recycle bin.
If you specify the --git flag Vimv will use git mv to rename files which are being tracked by git and git rm to delete files which are being tracked by git. Note that this bypasses the recycle bin for deleted files.
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"
You can pipe a list of filenames into Vimv from a tool like ls or fd, e.g.
$ fd .txt | vimv
Note that your editor may not appreciate inheriting a stdin that's connected to a pipe rather than a terminal.
In my experience, all graphical editors work fine, as does Neovim in the terminal.
Vim prints a warning, then works, then borks your terminal session until you run reset. YMMV.
Vimv is released under an MIT license.