If you have a bunch of files in a folder which you want to name sequentially and convert them to the same file type or format, how do you go about doing this? If it is just a few files, you can do it manually, but what if there are say 10-20 or even a 100 files?
In this post, we will see how to batch rename files as well as change file extension for all files in a folder quickly & easily in Windows 11/10/8/7. This can be especially useful if you have multiple photographs or images of various names or file extensions, like .jpg, .png, etc. and you would like to rename them to say India1.jpg, India2.jpg, etc. for the sake of convenience.
Change file extension for all files in a folder
As an example, we are assuming that you have several files in a folder of varying names and different file formats or extensions, and we want to change all these images to the JPG file extension. To begin the process, open the folder, press Shift, and right-click in an empty spot inside the folder.
You will see an Open command prompt here context menu item. Click on it to open a command prompt window. Now type the following in it and hit Enter:
ren *.* *.jpg
Here we are using a wildcard as we want any file extension to be changed to .jpg extension. When you do this, you will see that all the files in the folder will get an extension of .jpg.
Related: How to rename all File Extensions in a Folder at once in Windows
Batch rename files
Now the next thing you want to do is to rename the files sequentially. To do this, press Ctrl+A to select all the files in that folder.
Now rename the first file. Here I have renamed it to BatchRename. Having done this, press Enter or click anywhere inside the folder.
You will see that all the files will be renamed in a numerical sequence as BatchRename1, BatchRename2, etc.
So, by following this tutorial, you will have batch renamed all the files sequentially numerically and also changed the file extension for all files in the folder quickly & easily.
Similar to this tool is ContextReplace, which will help you rename multiple files or folders via the context menu.
TIP: In Windows, now, it’s even easier to rename multiple files or folders. If you want to rename multiple files, after renaming the first file, just tap the TAB button, and you’ll be moved on to the next in-line file or folder. You can thus immediately rename the following file.
Moreover, Windows also has one more nice feature. Even if you have the ‘show file extension’ feature enabled, it does not highlight the file type extension while renaming. So you are safer, as while renaming, you will not change or delete the extension by mistake.
These free File Renamer software may interest you.