Easily Rename All Files In Folders (NOOB vs PRO) & rename files based on an Excel table with PAD

This easy-to-follow tutorial shows you how to rename multiple files efficiently using Power Automate for Desktop.

🛠️ What You'll Discover:
▪️ Step-by-step instructions on installing and using Power Automate for Desktop.
▪️ How to create a new flow for renaming system files, including setting up variables and specifying file paths.
▪️ Techniques for dynamically renaming files based on specific conditions, like adding a location name to file names.
▪️ Advanced tips on how to use Power Automate for more complex tasks like renaming files based on data from an Excel sheet.

Power Automate for Desktop (PAD) is a great utility that helps you program complex tasks without writing a single line of code. Renaming a few file names is easy in Windows Explorer. But what do you do when you have to rename many files in a specific folder? Or in many subfolders? You can use a tool you already have access to which is Power Automate for Desktop. You have it if you have Office 365 at work. There might be other bulk Rename Utilities available, some are free, some are paid but they either have limitations or they're costly. Other tools are good for if you know programming. With Power Automate for Desktop you can bulk rename files in one go.

You don't need to do any programming, you just need to drag and drop. It's super simple, even our Office Noob gets the job done.
Power Automate for desktop also allows you to rename files based on a logic. For example, you might have a mapping table for renaming files in Excel. With Power Automate, you can use the logic from the Excel file and loop through the rows and rename files in windows explorer based on that.

00:00 How to Rename Multiple Files
00:36 How to Get Power Automate for Desktop
01:07 Create a New Flow
02:22 Get All Files in a Folder
03:30 Rename All Files
04:36 Run Flow
05:12 How to Make Dynamic Replacements
06:38 Loop and Read From Excel File
10:09 Dynamic Renaming of Files
11:44 Run Flow

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#noobvspro #powerautomate #powerautomatedesktop

[legojenn]

One of the challenges that I find with Leila's advice and tips that for those us who work in large corporations and government is our systems are locked down and by design, we're running a generation behind on the operating system and one to two generations behind on our office suite. The upgrade cycle is tied to budgets and risk management. We can't take advantage. My personal computer has Windows 11 and O365, but tend not to do officey things on it. This is not a problem for Leila to solve, but it does simultaneously lead to a frustration about being left behind and hope that things will be easier in the future. In the meantime, I have my 1994 DOS for Dummies book that sits on my desk for bulk tasks and batch files for doing some, but not all, of these automated tasks.

[TheRohit]

I had to do this recently, i just opened command prompt with cmd and ran a dir DOS command. With the results of the file list, i ran a ren (rename) command with the modified file name. (This works on any version of windows). A little search on dos commands will get you the job done.

[victor.craiovan]

Total Commander -> select files -> Files -> Multi-Rename Tool (Ctrl+M). Also a good search tool, synchronize directories, find duplicates...

[charlesgantz]

Great video introduction to Power Automate. One thing though. The first step should be to copy all the files to a new directory and rename from that directory. Otherwise, if you make a mistake in your Power Automate script you could lose all your files.

[jamesstramer]

If people follow your tutorials, they will save at least a couple of days worth of time.

You are literally adding lifespan to people🤣

[MrRKWRIGHT]

I truly enjoy joining in all these comprehsensive curated courses out there which do so much to help us optimize our health and wellness, forgiveness and meditation, avoiding vulnerability in the workplace, getting more done in less time, even if we've haven't had enough restful sleep or a healthy nutritional breakfast because in the typical workplace these days, you're expected to get online early and start signing and returning documents, renaming all files in folders, and have them all done well in advance of COB (whatever that is anymore). Fortunately, many of these courses are brown bag lunch and learn events, which allow us to grab a sandwich while while we learn more from the life lessons learned by the host. Great job Leila!!!

[ktalwandi]

Great content as always. Just a shortcut for the first task, Run powershell in the folder and enter the following command:

dir | rename-item -NewName {"Chicago_" + $_.name}

[spicehedge]

If you don't have windows 11, then search for "Rname-it v3.1" It has been around since the 90's, it will do the same and has more functions.

Rname-it is a Win95/98/NT file renaming utility that specialized in batch
process renaming. It allows the user to select multiple files and rename
them all at once. Files can easily be organized and grouped by renaming
to a new common prefix and/or padded with a unique numerical or alphabetical
value for sorting purposes. Also features Real Time Preview and Full
(Final) Preview to ease the user in complicated renaming procedures.
Great for graphics collectors and webmasters!

[denconstutube]

Excellent. I am embarrassed to admit it, but this is the first time I understand the power of Power Automate. Your videos are always great and educational. And cute!

[jackennis]

Hi Leila, excellent video! Have you any plans to create a comprehensive course on Power Automate? 🙂

[marklord]

Thanks Leila. I knew about Power Automate, but it was really helpful to see it applied in a useful way. Videos like this will get you even more subscribers for sure.

[rubendecastro]

Cant wait for your advance tips for this app. Really need help setting up the connectors.

[colormile-vid]

Yes! As always Leila is my savior. I've known about power automate and needed a tutorial on how to rename files. Before power automate I've been searching on how to rename files as this was a frustrating process to do. Luckily, I don't have a lot of files. BTW your videos are fun to watch. I love twin Leila 😁 and most of the time she represents me 🤣🤣🤣 Excellent performance. As always, thank you for sharing your expertise. Have a great day! ❤👍

[salkabalani]

Powerful tool. Could make life easier for a lot of people. The only problem I see is that you are not able to debug your programming before you commit the changes. For example windows Power Toys PowerRename utility has a preview window showing all the changes about to be applied before you actually commit them.

[claudiurusu]

I'll not recommend those scenes from the beggining. I'd say that most of us appreciate the old way you teach us things, straight to the point :)

[manideepak]

Recently I have done these task with the help of command prompt this is more easier and user friendly than power automate and even more faster than power automate

[BerserkPublishing]

Used to work for MSFT in the early/mid 90s. This reminds me of internal tools we would add to Windows and use in house. I have to admit, as someone who used to have to recover HD for MSDOS users on a telephone via edlin, this GUI is awesome. It essentially allows anyone to create some really nice batch scripts via the GUI instead of going to the command line. Nice to see MSFT still putting out useful development tools that can change the way end users at any level work.

[newbdagaming]

Thanks to Leila for showing this to the people of YouTube. 🙏🏽

Automating things had been for ages. Practically any programming language can be used to do so... But power automate do make it easier for everyone and specially for those who are not accustomed with coding. But then again you have to be good at creating steps of the algorithm.

[petr]

More videos with Mrs. Noob, please :-) And.. for boys and simply - Total Commander, Ctrl + M, counter, regular expressions and so on.

[Visionery]

Interesting! I've used PCs since 1998 and taught Newbies one-on-one, yet never had a need for this. I'd just run the DOS ren command - after almost 25 years basic DOS commands still play an important role.