renaming files in cmd using wildcards

Question

I'm writing a BAT file for renaming some files. My files are *.jpg where * is the file name and I want them to be *-thumb.jpg.

When trying to do RENAME *.jpg *-thumb.jpg my files appear as *.jpg-thumb.jpg.

Answer 1

Actually the RENAME command alone can solve the problem, as long as there is only one . in the name. Simply use many ? instead of a single *.

REN *.jpg ????????????????????-thumb.*

Just make sure the number of ? is at least as long as the longest file name that will be renamed.

You can ensure that names with multiple . are not accidentally named by using many ? in the source mask as well. The following will rename "abc.jpg" to "abc-thumb.jpg", but will leave "abc.xyz.jpg" alone.

REN ????????????????????.jpg ????????????????????-thumb.*

You can rename a file with two dots like "abc.xyz.jpg" using the following.

REN ????????????.????????????.jpg ????????????.????????????-thumb.*

The pattern can be extended for any number of dots in the name.

See How does the Windows RENAME command interpret wildcards? for more info.

Answer 2

Something like:

for %%f in (*.jpg) do rename "%%f" "%%~nf-thumb.jpg"