How to rename your media and subtitles files

When naming your media files (subtitles and videos), it is a good practice to pick names that make sense (that means they make sense not just to you), which will cover the important details related to the file.

Selecting long file names was a good practice ever since Microsoft released Windows XP (Romeo and Joliet are the standards that Microsoft pushed in order to enable users to select long file names even for CD media).

If you have a variety of file names that you want to rename in a sequential manner, you can either use the file system to mass rename your files, or you can use a small application to do the work for you.

There are several alternatives I personally used, and my favorite one, for MS Windows (XP and up), is Massive File Renamer, a simple freeware, that does the trick without too many complications.

Advanced users can also use the Windows Command Shell, by shift + right-click within the folder, and selecting ‘Open command window here’. Then typing the command ‘ren’ with the change they want to make to the files in the folder. Here’s a short Wikipedia explanation on this command functionality and a sample of how to use it within a video renaming situation.

If you would like to learn more about mass file renaming, read this great post from How-to-Geek.

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