[PowerRename] variable pattern notation for parent folder

[akulmehta]

📝 Description

Similar to File Creation Date Replace Notation, have a variable pattern notation $PF (Parent Folder) which can be used in the Replace with: field to add the parent folder name to the output renamed files.

Example

Current directory

└─ 0
   └─ file1.png
└─ 1
   └─ file1.png
└─ 2
   └─ file1.png
   └─ file2.png

Perform a regex search like : (.*).png, which captures the filename into variable $1

Replace with: $PF_$1.png

Expected output:

└─ 0
   └─ 0_file1.png
└─ 1
   └─ 1_file1.png
└─ 2
   └─ 2_file1.png
   └─ 2_file2.png

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If you'd like to see this feature implemented, add a 👍 reaction to this post.

[enricogior]

@akulmehta
what is the scenario for which this feature is a requirement, instead of just going to the parent folder and start PowerRename from there?

[akulmehta]

A possible scenario is that maybe the filenames are similar (e.g. above you can see all folders have file1.png as camera's might be producing these serially in folders) but the folder names are what differentiates the files (above I have just put 0, 1, 2 but they could be specific names which might be for example trip names etc). But rather than having them in a nested folder structure if you want to flatten the directory structure, then you cannot do that as the files would be the same filename. Using PowerRename one could append/prepend the folder name to the file name thereby differentiating the files below.

The point is that if the folder name carries some information which you would like to have in the filename. Currently there is no way to do it except maybe using PowerShell.

@enricogior I am not sure if this answers your question so please let me know if I missed something.

[dhyannirav]

I'd like to do exactly this to put all tracks of music albums in one directory. The tracks are named 01_xxx 02_xxx ... in each folder, so I'd like to prefix them with the parent folder name.

[typpos]

Yes please.

Use case:
Parent folders "Theme 1", "Theme 2", "Theme 3"... "Theme 95".
Each folder contains 130 icons named "01.ico" "02.ico" ...

Objective: Move all ico files into the same folder, but adjust file names to be meaningfully unique , ie, prefix file names with parent folder name, so I can later move all files to the same folder.