How to batch rename images, in reverse numerical order?

Question

My camera names its images IMG_0001.jpg, IMG_0002.jpg, IMG_0003.jpg, etc.

I have about a thousand images and would like to rename them without having to do it manually if possible.

Is there a good way to automate the process of renaming them in the reverse order - e.g. IMG_0003.jpg, IMG_0002.jpg, IMG_0001.jpg?

Answer 1

You can use an Automator Workflow.

Something like this:

Sort Finder Items step will sort image names descending (IMG_0003.jpg, IMG_002.jpg, IMG_001.jpg).

Make Sequential step will rename them sequentially (IMG_0001.jpg, IMG_0002.jpg, ...).

Copy Finder Items step is optional, just to be sure not to mess with original files.

Answer 2

Name Mangler ($10 and has a free trial) or Name Changer (free/donationware) is also very good for this sort of thing if you're after a nice, simple app.

Answer 3

You can use the perl rename.pl script looming around the web (for example, from here), and put it into the folder with your image files.

Its usage is simple and documented and it is pretty powerful. To use it for your case, replace MAXIMUM_NUMBER by the number in the last photo, then run:

perl rename.pl 's/IMG_0+(\d+)/"A_IMG_".sprintf("%04d",(MAXIMUM_NUMBER- $1))/xe' *.jpg && perl rename.pl 's/A_//' *.jpg

To explain:

1. The first rename (before &&) will rename all files to MAXIMUM_NUMBER minus the number already in the file name. It will also prefix the filename with A_ in order to avoid overwriting already existing files.
2. The second rename simply deletes the A_ from the file names.

Note that the rename.pl script can do much more than that if you ever need more complex renaming.

Answer 4

Try this in the Terminal:

mkdir new
ls IMG* > 1
sort -r < 1 > 2
paste 1 2 | awk '{ print "mv " $1 " new/" $2} ' > 3
. 3

The renamed files will be in the new folder.

Here is a brief explanation of how this works: it creates a script named 3 that does the renaming. For that, it creates a listing of the images in alphabetical order in 1 and in reverse order in 2. Then one line is read from each file and combine into a mv command, which is executed when you run 3. The images are renamed into the new folder to avoid collisions.

Answer 5

Here's another shell script. You can save it as a normal text file and then run bash /path/to/script.sh from Terminal. Remove the echo to actually rename the files.

cd ~/Pictures/
IFS=$'\n' # the input field separators include space by default
i=1
for f in $(ls -r IMG*.jpg); do 
    echo mv "$f" "IMG_$(printf %04d $i)".jpg
    (( i++ ))
done