Skip to main content
Participating Frequently
October 19, 2017
Not Prioritized

P: Ability to bulk - batch rename files

  • October 19, 2017
  • 94 replies
  • 8713 views

Lightroom CC - Renaming in bulk. This is another important feature from Lightroom which appears not to have made it (yet) to Lightroom CC.
Everyone has there own renaming strategy (don't they?). Once I have  applied keywords and corrected location details, I bulk rename to include date, location and primary keyword in the file title. OK - that may be overkill, but does help people I am selling images to.
Bulk renaming - for whatever reason and using whatever system - is an important tool for DAM and support for it in Lightroom CC would be appreciated.

94 replies

jörgs70149307
Participating Frequently
May 17, 2018


In Lightroom CC I can not change the file name. After export I have files with name "DSC...jpg". For me Lightroom CC is not usable with this problem, because I can not give files with this random file name to my clients.
March 4, 2018
As an very much an amateur photographer, Lightroom is by far the best option for importing, basic updating, organising (including key wording) and have available to share. A critical part of this 'simple' process is the bulk renaming of files with date and location / event. This ensures at the individual file level within explorer you can identify file contents. It has been pointed out in the above discussions, in many respects the "filename" becomes irrelevant in Lightroom cc as you can use location and key words to find the relevant photos. 
However as soon as you want to do anything outside Lightroom (eg. share with friends, bulk export for creating a photo book) exporting with the original camera roll file name will be painful. Particularly as the sorting files into a numeric date/time captured is not possible. As file creation date/time may not equal the date/time photo's were taken. 
Even inside lightroom cc this is an issue, as 'after the event', I'll often scan items such as ticket, brochures and maps as part of the story of a holiday. Renaming in my YYYY MM DD  HHMM Location format at least allows these items to be slotted in the correct location when files are sorted by file name for viewing.  

Secondly risks tying users permanently into the Lightroom environment potentially making a large barrier to moving if exporting all the additional information added in Lightroom can't be exported. 

The inability to rename file was a reason I did not move the Aperture a number of years ago. 

This file renaming is one of the main reasons I will not move from the classic version yet.
February 25, 2018

Have just looking at Lightroom cc (been using Classic / desktop version for many years). The interface looks great and very clean. Two key features which are missing (will prevent me from changing) are the ability to rename files and smart albums. The 'templated' renaming tools in Classic are great for bulk entering say date/time/locations. This is really the first step in my workflow. The second is the smart albums. These are the cornerstone of automatically having the "best of" albums for sharing. Whilst there are lots of other features not in the cc version, these are the basics amateur photographers like myself need. 

Inspiring
February 25, 2018
Smart Alblms... Please!
Participant
February 20, 2018
An important feature is to be able to "export" and "rename" files, even with a cloud-based system (eg to upload to a web service to make a photo book). In Lightroom CC you can create jpegs to be stored locally (via save as) but the file name is the original filename and this cannot be used to rename files, as in previous versions of lightroom. It can't be difficult to add this feature, and when doing so more control over jpeg production could also be added (eg max file size).
Inspiring
February 16, 2018
Hi Jao, thanks for your comment. it's very thorough and helps me understand the situation clearly.
Community Expert
February 16, 2018
There is no rename in Lightroom CC. It’s important to understand that Lightroom CC is not an update to Lightroom. It is a completely new program. It basically is a port of the mobile Os version to the desktop. Because of this it misses almost all of the features we are used to in Lightroom proper which is now called Lightroom Classic. Just like on the mobile version the file names in Lightroom CC are not important and not used by anything. All your original files are stored in the cloud in this version and tracked behind the scenes which is a great feature but comes at a cost. So my guess is that the philosophy here is just like mobile OS images. The file name doesn’t matter and is not a user accessible feature. Simply forget about it as there is no benefit to changing it. Use key wording and the other metadata fields (albums, captions, date and time etc) to describe and find your images or simply use Classic which does have all these features and works like Lightroom always has.

There is a jpeg export in Lightroom CC to export to local jpeg files. It is in the share button.
Inspiring
February 16, 2018


Hi, I am looking for the filename template editor so that I can apply standard naming to photos I import into Lightroom CC. While I know where it was in the previous versions, where is it in the new cloud based software?
Participant
February 16, 2018


Trialing LR CC and not thrilled.  Why can't I rename my files?  Please don't tell me I have to leave them with the camera file names.  

Also, why can't I export jpeg versions onto my own local storage?  

Any help appreciated.
RomFro
Participating Frequently
February 7, 2018
My trick for this is to use Bridge on my desktop to import the photos to a folder. Bridge let's you batch rename files similar to Lightroom Classic. Once I have folders based on the albums I will create in Lightroom CC, I open up LRCC and import the folders with the names I want into LRCC.

Bridge is free if you pay for Creative Cloud. It's an oldie but somehow is a companion to Adobe's latest photo management tool. Go Figure.

I agree with everyone, it would be nice if LR CC had it build into it - especially on desktop version.
Inspiring
January 31, 2018


hello, if i add a photo with the ligthroom mobile app it would be great if i took the photo. could rename! s.besten with the settings of lightroom cc or I can adjust the import of lightroom cc so that the. images automatically saves my desired filename! please please that would be great !!!!