I often get MP3s or WMA files that don't use the same naming convention that I use in my own collection. Renaming them manually is out of the question when I've got more than one album's worth of songs. RenaMusic makes it easy to rename files.
RenaMusic - main windowYou simply create a file pattern using the tags of the MP3 or WMA files, select the files to rename, add them to your queue, and hit rename.
For example, I keep all of my songs in directories based on artist and album. My file pattern looks like this
With RenaMusic, you can use any of the tags embedded in MP3 and WMA files, such as artist, album, title, and even bit rate, to create a new filename for the song.
In addition, RenaMusic supports the following string manipulations to give you even greater control of your filenames:
• Replace ___ with ___ Allows you to replace a character with another character. For example, you might want to replace a space with an underscore.
• All lowercase Converts the tags to lowercase.
• All uppercase Converts the tags to uppercase.
• First letter uppercase Makes the first letter of each tag uppercase.
• Remove initial "The" from Artist and append to the end This takes the "The" from a band's name and appends the ", The" to the end. For example, "The Police" would become "Police, The."
The program also has two additional tags:
• First letter of artist Takes the first letter of the artist and makes it a tag. For example, if the artist is U2, this tag will have the value U. This is handy if you store your collection in alphabetical folders.
• Original filename Lets you use the filename that originally was associated with the file.
I often get MP3s or WMA files that don't use the same naming convention that I use in my own collection. Renaming them manually is out of the question when I've got more than one album's worth of songs. RenaMusic makes it easy to rename files.
RenaMusic - main windowYou simply create a file pattern using the tags of the MP3 or WMA files, select the files to rename, add them to your queue, and hit rename.
For example, I keep all of my songs in directories based on artist and album. My file pattern looks like this
With RenaMusic, you can use any of the tags embedded in MP3 and WMA files, such as artist, album, title, and even bit rate, to create a new filename for the song.
In addition, RenaMusic supports the following string manipulations to give you even greater control of your filenames:
• Replace ___ with ___ Allows you to replace a character with another character. For example, you might want to replace a space with an underscore.
• All lowercase Converts the tags to lowercase.
• All uppercase Converts the tags to uppercase.
• First letter uppercase Makes the first letter of each tag uppercase.
• Remove initial "The" from Artist and append to the end This takes the "The" from a band's name and appends the ", The" to the end. For example, "The Police" would become "Police, The."
The program also has two additional tags:
• First letter of artist Takes the first letter of the artist and makes it a tag. For example, if the artist is U2, this tag will have the value U. This is handy if you store your collection in alphabetical folders.
• Original filename Lets you use the filename that originally was associated with the file.
Using RenaMusic
RenaMusic - tags Once you've got the program installed and running, the first thing you'll do is create a file pattern. The file pattern determines how your files will be renamed based on the tags embedded in the music files. Select the tags that you'd like to have appear in the filename from the drop-down button called "Insert tag." When you select a tag, it will be copied to the pattern input box.
In addition to the tags listed, you can also enter your own text into the pattern. If you'd like hyphens between tags, you could type "-" in the file pattern. For example, if you have a song embedded with an artist tag of "U2" and a title of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," the file pattern
You can also type a backslash to create a directory of the tag preceding the "\." For example, if you had the pattern
Or perhaps you'd like to move the file to a different root directory so that "C:\Music\Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.mp3" would end up in "D:\My Other Music." Simply change the file pattern to D:\My Other Music\
In addition to the music tags, there are string manipulations and additional tags, described on the first page, that enable you to have even more control over the resulting filenames.
Once you've created your file pattern, you select the files you'd like to rename. You can select a folder and its subfolders or specific files by clicking on the checkbox next to the folder or filename. Once you've made your selections, hit the Add button to move those files to the queue. If you'd prefer, you can drag and drop files from Windows Explorer to the queue.
The Queue
The Queue is the list of all the files that you are going to rename. In addition to the filename, you can see all of the tags associated with the files.
RenaMusic - queueYou can view the queue as a simple list, or you can view the list grouped by tags. For example, perhaps you have 200 files in your list, and you'd like to see them displayed by artist. Simply drag the Artist column header to the top of the queue and it will display the list grouped by artist. Now suppose you want to define the view further so you can see the albums from the artists. Drag the Album column header to the top and it will now show you the artists with their respective albums.
The Queue provides a nice way to confirm the selection of files. You can also edit the embedded tags of a file by clicking the tag and editing it directly in the queue.
Preview & Rename
RenaMusic - preview window Before renaming the files in your queue, I strongly recommend previewing what effect the file pattern will have on your files. You can't undo a rename, so previewing really helps ensure that your file pattern is designed the way you intended it to be. Hit the Preview button and a new window will appear showing you the original path and filename and the new one.
Once you're satisfied with the preview, simply hit Rename. RenaMusic will process all of the files in the queue and pop up a dialog to notify you when it has finished.
That's it. RenaMusic takes a tedious, time-consuming project and makes it easy and quick to complete.
