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I was recently approached by one of my blog readers John Ott, to help out with a bit of a technical challenge he had. John used a fairly complicated filing system for keeping track of lots of documents, blue prints and photos for projects him and his team work on. This included many subfolders with deep subfolders following a strict naming convention. When John starts a project, he used to copy and paste his top-level folder, then work his way through all its subfolders updating the folder names with the new project code. John reached out to me to see if I could help out, so I put together this Bulk folder rename AppleScript which takes user input for source and destination folders and the latest project code, it then traverses the folders and their subfolder and updates the names as required.

-- Apple Script to copy and rename a folder structure and its subfolders
-- Author Mike Hudson (aka MikeSel - https://www.mikesel.info)

tell application "Finder"
    
    set JobName to text returned of (display dialog "Please enter five digit code:" default answer "ST1234")
    set templateFolder to choose folder with prompt "Please Choose Template Folder"
    
    set fldName to name of templateFolder
    
    set newName to my replace_chars(fldName, "ST000", JobName)
    
    set destinationFolder to choose folder with prompt "Please Choose Destination Folder"
    
    set newFolder to duplicate templateFolder to destinationFolder
    set pro_folder to newFolder
    set all_pro_folders to every folder of pro_folder
    log all_pro_folders
    repeat with parent_folder in all_pro_folders
        log parent_folder
        set child_folders to every folder of parent_folder
        
        repeat with current_folder in child_folders
            set grandchildItems to every item of current_folder
            repeat with grandchildItem in grandchildItems
                set greatgrandchildItems to every item of grandchildItem
                repeat with greatgrandchildItem in greatgrandchildItems
                    set fold_name to the name of greatgrandchildItem
                    log (fold_name)
                    set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)
                    set the name of greatgrandchildItem to new_name
                    log (new_name)
                end repeat
                set fold_name to the name of grandchildItem
                log (fold_name)
                set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)
                set the name of grandchildItem to new_name
                log (new_name)
            end repeat
            
            set fold_name to the name of current_folder
            log (fold_name)
            set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)
            log (new_name)
            set the name of current_folder to new_name
            
        end repeat
        set fold_name to the name of parent_folder
        log (fold_name)
        set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)
        log (new_name)
        set the name of parent_folder to new_name
    end repeat
    
    set pro_folder's name to newName
end tell

on replace_chars(this_text, search_string, replacement_string)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the search_string
    set the item_list to every text item of this_text
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the replacement_string
    set this_text to the item_list as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return this_text
end replace_chars

-- Apple Script to copy and rename a folder structure and its subfolders

-- Author Mike Hudson (aka MikeSel - https://www.mikesel.info)

tell application "Finder"

set JobName to text returned of (display dialog "Please enter five digit code:" default answer "ST1234")

set templateFolder to choose folder with prompt "Please Choose Template Folder"

set fldName to name of templateFolder

set newName to my replace_chars(fldName, "ST000", JobName)

set destinationFolder to choose folder with prompt "Please Choose Destination Folder"

set newFolder to duplicate templateFolder to destinationFolder

set pro_folder to newFolder

set all_pro_folders to every folder of pro_folder

log all_pro_folders

repeat with parent_folder in all_pro_folders

log parent_folder

set child_folders to every folder of parent_folder

repeat with current_folder in child_folders

set grandchildItems to every item of current_folder

repeat with grandchildItem in grandchildItems

set greatgrandchildItems to every item of grandchildItem

repeat with greatgrandchildItem in greatgrandchildItems

set fold_name to the name of greatgrandchildItem

log (fold_name)

set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)

set the name of greatgrandchildItem to new_name

log (new_name)

end repeat

set fold_name to the name of grandchildItem

log (fold_name)

set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)

set the name of grandchildItem to new_name

log (new_name)

end repeat

set fold_name to the name of current_folder

log (fold_name)

set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)

log (new_name)

set the name of current_folder to new_name

end repeat

set fold_name to the name of parent_folder

log (fold_name)

set new_name to my replace_chars(fold_name, "ST000", JobName)

log (new_name)

set the name of parent_folder to new_name

end repeat

set pro_folder's name to newName

end tell

on replace_chars(this_text, search_string, replacement_string)

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the search_string

set the item_list to every text item of this_text

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to the replacement_string

set this_text to the item_list as string

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

return this_text

end replace_chars

You can download a zipped up copy of the above script by clicking

If you’ve a project and you’d like to see if I can help, get in touch using my Contact Form.

Have you ever had the need to rename several hundred files, in countless subfolders? Using nothing but Automator you can have it completed in minutes..

Using the method below you can:

Find & Replace, in either the full name or just the file extension
Add Date or Time
Add additional text
Change the case of the name
Make Sequential

This comes especially handy if you need to change the extension of countless movies for instance.. So if you want to switch M4V’s to MP4’s for compatibility with media players:

Launch ‘Automator’ from the Applications
Chose Workflow from the menu
Select ‘Files and Folders’ from the Actions panel on the left hand side
Then drag a ‘Ask for Finder Items’ to the workflow
Now, chose a ‘Get Folder Contents’, and tick the box to ‘Repeat for Each Subfolder’
Then select a ‘Replace Text’ object from the actions menu.
Change the selections depending on what you are wanting to achieve and then hit the ‘Run’ button.

That’s it, it really is as easy as that.. What’s more, to make it even easier I have uploaded the workflow template for you to download here.

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Bulk folder rename AppleScript

How-To: Mass rename files/folders in OS X