Tired of sending all those images to your clients with Lightroom’s wonderful ‘-Edit’ on the end? Shot the whole day tethered, spelling someone’s name wrong? Or maybe you just need to change the name of a whole bunch of file names in Finder at once. Here’s a great little trick I use all the time utilizing Apple’s built-in ‘Automator’ application.
Note: this can only be done on a Mac (Sorry PC guys…)
1. Begin by opening ‘Automator’ from the Applications folder.
2. Once the ‘New’ dialog comes up, click ‘Workflow’ and then ‘Choose’.
3. Open a new finder window and navigate to the files you’d like to rename or replace some text. Highlight all the files you’d like to rename, then click and drag to the area of Automator that says: ‘Drag actions or files…’ and let go. You may see a dialog come up asking if you want to copy the finder items first–say ‘Don’t Copy’.
4. On the left column under ‘Actions’>’Library’, click ‘Files & Folders’ and look for ‘Rename Finder Items’ in the next column.
5. Click and drag ‘Rename Finder Items’ to the right large gray area directly beneath the ‘Get Specified Finder Items’ and let go.
6. Click the dropdown that says ‘Add Date or Time’ and choose ‘Replace Text’.
7. Type in the text you’d like to ‘Find’, and then what you’d like to ‘Replace’ that text with.
8. Finally, click ‘Run’ in the upper right corner of the window.
That’s it! Hope this helps out. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.