Ant Renamer

Ant Renamer is a free Windows application designed to rename multiple files and folders using various methods. It supports Unicode names, including Greek, Japanese, Chinese and other character sets. The software does not modify file contents, only names. It provides rename preview, batch processing, undo functionality and operation logging to text files.

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• Change extension. Modifies the file extension of selected items. The user can replace the current extension with a new one, for example changing .txt to .bak. It also allows removing the extension entirely or adding a second extension. This function is suitable for mass-converting file types without altering the base name.
• Replace character strings. Searches for a specific string within the file name and replaces it with another string. Case-sensitive or case-insensitive matching is available. The user can replace only the first occurrence or all occurrences. Example: change "photo_" to "image_" across a batch of files.
• Insert characters. Adds text at a specified position in the original name. The user defines the position (beginning, end, or a specific character index). The same string can be inserted into multiple files. Useful for adding prefixes like "2024_" or suffixes like "_v2" to file sets.
• Delete characters. Removes a defined number of characters from a specified position. Deletion can occur from the start, from the end, or from a specific index. For example, if file names contain a 3-digit code at the beginning, that code can be removed from all files at once.
• Automatic enumeration. Adds sequential numbers to file names. The user configures the starting number, increment value and number of digits (with leading zeros). Enumeration can be placed at the beginning, end or any position. Files can be sorted by name, date or size before enumeration. Example: convert "report.txt", "report2.txt" into "001_report.txt", "002_report.txt".
• Use MP3 tags (ID3 v1.1). Renames MP3 audio files by extracting information from their metadata. Available fields include title, artist, album, year, track number and genre. The user defines a format using variables such as %title%, %artist%, %album%. Example: transform "track01.mp3" into "Artist - Title.mp3". This function reads ID3 v1.1 tags only.
• Use file date and time. Employs file timestamp attributes (modification date, creation date or last access date) to generate names. Date and time format is configurable: year, month, day, hour, minute, second. Example: convert "document.txt" into "2025-03-12_15-30-22_document.txt". Useful for sorting files by their actual date regardless of original names.
• Random names. Generates file names based on random character strings. The user chooses name length and allowed characters (uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits). A fixed prefix can be combined with random characters. Example: "photo_AB3K9.jpg". This prevents duplicates when sequential ordering is not required.
• Change case. Converts text in file names to different formats: all uppercase, all lowercase, first letter of each word uppercase, or only the first letter of the name uppercase. Applies to the entire name or a selected portion. Example: convert "EXAMPLE FILE.TXT" to "Example File.txt".
• Rename using external list. Uses a text file containing a list of new names, one per line. Ant Renamer assigns each name from the list to a selected file in the same order. If there are more files than names, remaining files are not renamed. Useful when desired names are already written elsewhere.
• Use EXIF information from images. Extracts metadata from image files (JPEG, TIFF) such as capture date, camera model, ISO speed, aperture and exposure time. The new name is constructed by combining these fields. Example: "2025-03-10_CANON_EOS_ISO400.jpg". Does not modify original metadata, only reads the information to create names.
• Regular expressions (regex). Provides advanced renaming using search and replace patterns with regular expression syntax. The user can capture parts of the original name and reorder or transform them. Supports metacharacters, quantifiers and capture groups. Example: change "img_001.jpg" to "photo_001.jpg" using expression "img_(\d+)" and replace with "photo_$1".
• Multiple simultaneous replacements. Defines a table of several strings to search for and their corresponding replacements. The program applies all replacements in a single pass. Example: replace "red" with "rojo", "blue" with "azul", "green" with "verde" simultaneously across selected names.
• Move or delete characters by position. Extracts a range of characters from a start position to an end position and places that fragment elsewhere within the name. The extracted fragment can also be deleted. Useful for reorganizing names with fixed structure, for example moving a product code from the end to the beginning.
• Undo last operation. Ant Renamer saves the state before each batch rename operation. The user can completely revert the last change, restoring all original names. This function undoes only the immediate previous operation, not multiple steps back.
• Action logging. The application generates a log file containing the list of processed files, original names and new names. The log can be exported as .TXT or .LOG file, or copied to clipboard for pasting into other programs. Includes date and time of each operation.
• Remove dead files from list. When files added to the list are later deleted from disk, Ant Renamer can clean the list by automatically removing those entries. This prevents errors when attempting to rename files that no longer exist.
• Batch mode (operation chaining). Allows chaining several rename operations into a single execution. The user configures a sequence of actions (for example: delete characters, then enumerate, then change extension) and the program applies them one after another. Each operation uses the result of the previous one.

Ant Renamer was created by Antoine Potten, a Belgian developer. The first public version dates from 2001. The software is written in Delphi (Object Pascal). Historically distributed as closed source, recent versions released part of the source code. The last stable update was in 2022.

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