Rename images in bulk, free and online

Every camera, phone and screenshot tool invents its own file name, and none of them are trying to be helpful. You end up with a folder of IMG_4821, DSC_0037 and Screenshot 2026 04 12 at 11.42.18.png, and six months later you cannot find the one photo you need. This tool lets you rename image files in bulk in one pass. Add the photos, describe the name you want once, and every file in the batch gets it, with counters, dates and pixel sizes where you need them.

It all runs inside your own browser tab, so nothing is uploaded. That matters more than it sounds, because renaming is usually the first thing you do to client photos, product shots or scanned documents, and those are exactly the files you should not be handing to a stranger’s server just to change a few characters.

Why the name of an image file still matters

A file name looks like a small thing until it costs you an hour. It quietly does three jobs.

The first is search. Google uses the file name along with the alt text to work out what a picture shows, as its own image SEO documentation explains. IMG_4821.jpg tells a crawler nothing. blue-ceramic-coffee-mug-handmade.jpg describes the photo before anyone has looked at it. WordPress also builds the image address from the name you upload, so fixing it later means re uploading and repointing every place the picture was used.

The second is finding your own work. Most archives are searched, not browsed. If your files carry a date and a short description, a search for “lisbon 2026” brings back the right set instantly. If they carry the camera’s counter, you are scrolling through thumbnails and guessing.

The third is everyone else. Once a folder leaves your machine, the names are all the context the recipient gets. A designer receiving product-01.jpg through product-40.jpg knows the order. A client receiving DSC_0037.jpg knows nothing and will email you to ask.

How to rename image files in bulk

The tool above is built around one idea: you should see every new name before anything is saved. Each thumbnail carries the name it is about to receive, so a mistake in the pattern shows up immediately instead of after you unpack a zip.

Three ways to build the new name

• Name pattern. Write the name you want and drop in tokens for the parts that change. Use this when the whole batch should follow one scheme, such as amsterdam-canal-{n}.
• Find and replace. Keep the original names and change one piece of text inside them, which is ideal for stripping a prefix such as DSC_ or swapping draft for final.
• Prefix or suffix. Leave the name alone and add something in front, on the end, or both. This is how you tag a set as thumbnail, web or print without losing what was there.

What each token produces

The extension is added for you, so never type .jpg or .png into the pattern. Pixel sizes are only read when you actually use those tokens, which keeps large batches quick.

Naming patterns that work in real projects

• A shoot or an event. Date first so the folder sorts itself, then the subject, then a counter. {date}-harbour-wedding-{n} gives you 2026-04-12-harbour-wedding-001 and onwards.
• A shop or product catalogue. Lead with the product or the SKU and number the angles, so ceramic-mug-navy-001 is the main shot and 002 is the side.
• Images for a website. Write the name the way you would write a page slug. Lowercase, hyphens between words, no spaces anywhere.
• Scans and paperwork. Dates carry more weight than descriptions, so {date}-invoice-northgate-{n} keeps a whole year in order.
• Design and web assets. When size is the useful fact, hero-banner-{w}x{h} tells you which export belongs where without opening it.

File naming rules worth following

1. Skip spaces. A space becomes %20 in a web address and confuses plenty of scripts and upload forms. Hyphens are safest, and search engines read them as word breaks.
2. Stay lowercase. Windows treats Photo.jpg and photo.jpg as one file, most web servers do not. Lowercase removes a whole category of broken image links.
3. Write dates as year, month, day. The 2026-04-12 order sorts correctly by name everywhere. Day first reads naturally and sorts into nonsense.
4. Pad your counters. With three digits, 002 stays ahead of 010. With plain numbers, 10 jumps in front of 2 exactly when the set gets long enough to matter.
5. Drop the awkward characters. Slashes, colons, question marks, asterisks, quotes and pipe symbols break something somewhere, so they are stripped out for you.
6. Describe the picture, not your process. final-final-v3-USE-THIS-ONE.jpg has never helped anybody, including the person who wrote it.

What happens to the image itself

Nothing. Renaming here is a copy rather than a conversion. Each file is written into its new name with the same bytes it arrived with, so resolution, sharpness, colour profile and EXIF data survive untouched. There is no decoding and no second round of compression, which means a renamed JPEG is identical to the original in every way except the name on the outside.

One detail catches people out. The camera also writes a name inside the file, in the EXIF block, and that stays as it was. It is separate from the file name and harmless in most workflows.

If the batch is headed for a website, renaming is usually step one of two. Once the names are right, run the set through Compress Image to bring the sizes down, or Resize Image to set one width across the folder.

Renaming in the browser compared with the alternatives

A workflow that keeps the batch tidy

1. Copy the photos off the card into a working folder first, so the originals are never at risk.
2. Drop that folder onto the panel above, or use the folder button to pull it in whole.
3. Sort the grid by date so the numbering matches the order the photos were taken.
4. Remove anything you do not want with the cross on the thumbnail, because a rejected shot should never take a number.
5. Write the pattern, then read a few names under the thumbnails to be sure it says what you meant.
6. Rename the batch, download the zip, and unpack it into the folder you plan to keep.

Two minutes of naming at the start saves a great deal of digging later. Set the rule once, let it run across the whole batch, and the folder stays useful long after you have forgotten what was in it.