How I Finally Sorted Bulk Renaming in Windows 11 — After Sitting There Staring at the Screen for Too Long
This is gonna sound familiar — if you’ve ever tried to rename a bunch of files or folders all at once in Windows 11, you know it’s kinda clunky. I mean, the basic right-click and rename thing is fine for one or maybe two items, but when you have dozens or hundreds? Yeah, not so smooth. I spent way too long trying different methods, so here’s what finally worked and what to watch out for.
The Usual Method — Just Renaming One by One
The classic way is to right-click and hit “Rename” or press F2. Then you type your new name. Cool, but only for one file. Selecting multiple and renaming only changes the last one, which doesn’t help when you want a pattern or uniform prefix/suffix. That was the first hurdle — not supported natively for bulk edits.
Adding Text to Multiple Files at Once (Kinda Limited)
If you select, say, ten files and do “Rename,” Windows will let you type something that will be appended with numbers in parentheses, like “Episode (1)”, “Episode (2)”, etc. That’s kinda handy if you’re ok with that numbering system, but what if you want a fixed prefix or suffix without extra numbers? Not so straightforward.
For instance, I tried selecting all episodes and typing “MySeries ” and hitting Enter. Windows would then automatically rename the last selected file to “MySeries” and add numbers to all the others, which is okay in some cases but not ideal when you want strict control over names without the extra parenthetical numbers.
So, I Started Digging into PowerShell — The Sneaky Shortcut
This is where it got interesting. If you’re comfortable with command-line stuff, PowerShell is a lifesaver. Open it by navigating to your folder in Explorer, then clicking on the address bar, typing powershell, and hitting Enter. Or, shift + right-click on the folder and select Open PowerShell window here. Sometimes, what shows up in context menus is different depending on your Windows version or manufacturer’s customizations — I got caught a few times.
Now, to add a prefix to all files, I ran like this:
Get-ChildItem -File | Rename-Item -NewName { "MySeries " + $_.Name }This prepended “MySeries ” directly before each filename. But wait — what if your files have extensions? They get added to the name too, which might cause issues. For cleaner results, I used a more precise script:
Get-ChildItem -File | ForEach-Object {
$name = $_.BaseName
$ext = $_.Extension
Rename-Item $_.FullName -NewName ("MySeries " + $name + $ext)
}This way, the extension stays intact, and it just prepends text to the filename itself. Super helpful when dealing with things like photos or documents.
And if you want to do this across subfolders or multiple directories, you can change the path in Get-ChildItem or run the script inside each folder — just be mindful of nested contents if needed.
Appending Suffixes — Like “_2024” — the Same Trick
Same idea if you want to add something at the end of filenames. Select your files, hit F2, and type the new suffix. But here’s the problem — Windows’ native renaming can’t automatically insert suffixes before the extension when doing bulk, unless you do some scripting. So for automation and consistency, PowerShell again is your buddy:
Get-ChildItem -File | ForEach-Object {
$name = $_.BaseName
$ext = $_.Extension
Rename-Item $_.FullName -NewName ($name + "_2024" + $ext)
}This adds “_2024” just before the extension, fixing the common problem where suffixes get appended after the extension, messing up file types. Little scripts like this saved me a heap of time.
Renaming with Sequential Numbers — The Holy Grail
Now, this was a real pain point. Windows doesn’t have the best built-in support for sequential renaming beyond manually renaming the first file, then hitting Tab to move to the next — which is a chore with large batches.
That’s where PowerToys, Microsoft’s free utilities, come in. The feature called PowerRename is a total game changer. Once installed, it shows up on the context menu when you select multiple files and choose “PowerRename.”
Getting Started with PowerRename
- Select your files in Explorer.
- Right-click and pick PowerRename.
- In the window that pops up, you can enter a pattern, like “Photo,” and tell it to add a sequence. There’s a checkbox for Add sequence, and you can set the starting number and padding (like 001, 002, etc.).
It takes a little fiddling sometimes to get the pattern just right—especially if filenames already have numbers or special characters—but once you do, it’s smoothly automated. Better than writing scripts for each set of files.
Final Thoughts — Bulk Renaming is Still a Bit of a Pain, But You Can Make It Work
Honestly, native Windows 11 still feels like it’s missing some smarter bulk renaming tools, but with a combo of PowerShell scripts, PowerRename, and some patience, most tasks are doable. It’s honestly annoying how many steps are involved, but once you get used to the scripting or PowerRename workflow, it’s a lot less frustrating.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s to always double-check after a bulk rename — especially if you’re doing something critical like video files or documents. And keep a backup or verify filenames before hitting Enter, because once it’s done, it’s hard to revert without undoing each one (which can be tedious).
Anyway, hope this saves someone another agonizing weekend. It took me way too long to find a reliable method, so sharing my pain here. Good luck, and don’t forget to double-check your scripts!