How to find and replace text in many file names

To find and replace text in many file names, add a Find and replace in Hangar’s Batch rename, read every new name, and stack more replacements in the same pass. Finder’s Replace Text handles one replacement and shows one example name. File Explorer can’t do it at all.

We tested this with Hangar 0.12.2 and 0.12.3 and Finder on macOS 27.0.1, on 180 camera files, 30 worksheets and 40 small files built to go wrong.

Find and replace file names in Hangar

Open Batch Rename and click Folder, or Files to pick them by hand.
Click add next to Refinements and pick Find and replace. Enter the first find and replace.
Add another Find and replace for each further change. They run from top to bottom, each on the result of the one above, and the arrows on a card move it up or down.
Read down the queue. Each file shows its final name under the old one.
Leave Save copies selected and click Rename 30 files to copies (the button shows your own file count).

On our 30 worksheets, “Copy of “ to nothing and “ 2026” to “ FY26“ turned Copy of Assets 2026.xlsx into Assets FY26.xlsx, and the same for the other 29:

Batch Rename queue with two Find and replace cards, Copy of to nothing and 2026 to FY26. Copy of Assets 2026.xlsx shows Assets FY26.xlsx, and the button reads Rename 30 files to copies

Four jobs and how to set each one up

Job	Find	Replace with	Result
Swap a prefix	`IMG_`	`Lisbon_`	IMG_4121.JPG → Lisbon_4121.JPG
Delete a word	`Copy of`	nothing	Copy of Assets 2026.xlsx → Assets 2026.xlsx
Change part of a name	`2026`	`FY26`	Assets 2026.xlsx → Assets FY26.xlsx
Change a client name	`AcmeCo`	`Northwind`	AcmeCo proposal.txt → Northwind proposal.txt

Watch the space in “Copy of “ and “ 2026”. It’s part of what you’re finding, and leaving it out leaves a stray space in every name.

The two traps

Both come from the same thing: the find looks for letters, not meaning.

Case. Find and replace ignores case, which suits most client renames. To leave “acmeco” alone, tick Match case. On a small test folder with two files spelled AcmeCo, one acmeco and one ACMECO, it changed only the two AcmeCo files. With the box off, it changed all four.

Partial matches. “Jo” is also inside Joanna, Jordan, Major and Project Jobs. Replacing Jo with Sam changed 10 of our 20 files:

Batch Rename queue with Find and replace of Jo with Sam. Jo expenses.txt becomes Sam expenses.txt, but Joanna expenses.txt becomes Samanna expenses.txt, Jordan review.txt becomes Samrdan review.txt, Major update.txt becomes MaSamr update.txt and Project Jobs.txt becomes Project Sambs.txt

Tick Regex and use \bJo\b, where \b means “the edge of a word”. That changed only the 3 files that had Jo as its own word:

Batch Rename queue with the regex on. Jo expenses.txt shows Sam expenses.txt, while Joanna expenses.txt and Banjo lessons.txt keep their names

When to use a regular expression

A regular expression, or regex, describes a pattern of text instead of exact letters. Three are worth copying. Tick Regex on the Find and replace card.

What you want	Find	Replace with	Our result
Remove anything in brackets	`\s$[^)]$`	nothing	Deck (copy).txt → Deck.txt
Move a date from the end to the start	`^(.*) (\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})$`	`$2 $1`	Report 2024-03-15.txt → 2024-03-15 Report.txt
Remove every number	`\s*\d+`	nothing	Plan 7 draft.txt → Plan draft.txt

In the second one, each pair of brackets captures a piece of the name, and $1 and $2 put those pieces back in the order you choose. All 7 dated files moved cleanly:

The Find pattern with two bracket groups, one around any text and one around the date. Report 2024-03-15.txt splits into Report and 2024-03-15. Replace with $2 $1 gives 2024-03-15 Report.txt

The other two need care. Removing brackets from Scan (1) page.txt and Scan (2) page.txt gave both the same name, so Hangar flagged 2 name clashes. Removing every number gave 12 clashes, and Report 2024-03-15.txt came out as Report–.txt.

Find and replace with Finder

Select the files, choose File > Rename and pick Replace Text. Fill in Find and Replace with, check the example at the bottom, and click Rename. Apple’s guide shows the same steps.

You get one replacement per pass and no whole-word option. It also ignores case, so our AcmeCo search hit 8 files, including “acmeco brief” and “ACMECO contract”. If it goes wrong, press Cmd+Z straight after, and see undoing a batch rename if you can’t.

Find and replace on Windows

File Explorer has no find and replace for names. Hangar also runs on Windows, though we ran the steps above on a Mac. PowerRename in Microsoft’s free PowerToys is the other route. We didn’t run it.

Short questions

Does find and replace change the file extension?

Not in Hangar. The extension is kept even when the find matches letters inside it. To change it, add Change extension. In Finder, check the example before you click Rename.

Can I replace text in the contents of files this way?

No. These tools change file names only.

Why did nothing change in the preview?

The find has to match exactly, spaces included. With Regex ticked, characters like brackets and dots have special meaning, so untick it for plain text.

For the wider picture, read how to rename multiple files at once. If the text you’re replacing is spaces, removing spaces from file names has a better route. Hangar’s other file tools are in the archive group.

Find and replace across a whole folder offline, with every new name shown first.