P: Ability to bulk - batch rename files

[MJCreighton]

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.

[Guest]

I totally agree. I can get the "full cloud" spirit, but at some point, one should be able to get files named as wished. The publishing features are great in LR Classic, and their lack-of is a major drawback of the new CC. When combined with the inability to name pictures properly, it becomes highly unuseable.

Please do something, quick.

[Rocodil]

Use Adobe Bridge for the time being (see above)

[adventurous_style5EF8]

And I want to be able to see the name of the file, and the new dimensions without going into PS

[LocalHero1953]

I also want to be able to batch rename files. This has to be basic functionality of any photo management system.
The suggestion that "it is not needed because that is not how cloud storage works" is just nonsense IMO. It is something I need.

[Kindhearted_Swirl5E41]

It has taken me awhile to get comfortable with LRCC and, now that I am, I am increasingly frustrated with the inability to rename files.  I do not want to jump ship and have to relearn a new system but I am losing patience.

[russellp57526448]

I advocate very strongly for a batch re-naming function within LR that includes a Regex module that mimics the 'fractional' batch rename function that Bridge provides. By 'fractional' I mean having the ability to deal with substrings within the file name.

I frequently use the Bridge batch rename function for renaming that is be done BEFORE importing into LR. But once an image is known to LR, renaming it outside LR converts it into a missing file so using Bridge is not an option if you want to batch rename files that are already in LR.

Remove/Rename in Bridge/Re-import is at best a crude work-around and in some situations leads to loss of LR information (e.g., membership in Collections),

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Even after a year has gone by, I have to agree, the new CC works for casual photographers wanting professional tools.

The workflow is broken: when sharing my images with un-Lightroom'd people, I want - I need - the images named, and that data should be with originals. Lightroom manages my photos? Into Lightroom the name goes. If the originals are in the cloud, I need the name in the cloud.

If some lyrical waxing is allowed: "Sandstorm in Samarkand" or "Tadjik Hospitality" isn't meta data, it's not just a search term. It sits at the very heart of what we do: evoke emotions, present the world, educate. A file name is, no matter the viewer, the first thing they see, the first hook into wanting to know more, no matter where your picture ends up.  A few well chosen words can be more powerful and more transformative than any filter.

---

If I'm busy barfing out all my frustrations with the "new lightroom philosophy" here, I can as well continue:

Cloud is broken, too. I do not have google fiber, and I need very tight control over where photos go that can incriminate warm, welcoming and helpful people.

Sorry for ranting. Thanks for listening.

[Guest]

That's all fine and well. But I want to control with what name my files are exported, as well as how to find them on my local filesystem (where local copies are stored).

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have just switched to using LR CC for editing and was enjoying how easy it was to continue to edit my files on the go, but not being able to rename them is a devastating blow! I strongly advocate that Adobe fix this issue. As a professional wedding and event photographer, I NEED to be able to rename my images for my clients simply. There just isn't time to mess around with finding a work around, when I could so easily rename my files in LR Classic. Why would this feature be dismissed?!?! Please consider adding this quickly? Thankfully, we're at the end of our season currently, but it'd sure be nice to have this fixed soon. 

Dear Adobe, please fix this?
Thank you,
A Faithful LR User

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

I suspect that, besides prioritization decisions, the roadblock is compatibility with sync in Classic. If someone renamed their photos in the CC cloud, and were still syncing with a Classic catalog too, Classic could run into trouble. The Classic files could be offline, preventing them from being renamed. Just a suspicion...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I couldn't agree more

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm gonna go ahead and bump this thread as some may appreciate this story.

I just ran into the same issue for the first time. I'm on a 2013 MBP which still works literally just fine (knock on wood), and recently transitioned over to LRCC because I'd been on Aperture for ages, and figured it was time since it's been a full five years since they discontinued it.

I shot a wedding on two cameras; normally I shoot on one, but my shutter actually broke about 60 seconds before the bride and groom kissed, and so I was forced to grab my second body. And yes, as it turns out, I'm about to turn these photos over, and boy is this file naming getting in my mf way.

I'm still running OS X High Sierra because I want to make sure I can still access my old Aperture libraries, and because I don't give a flying fiddlestick about having "Dark Mode". I discover this thread of tired, poor, huddled photographers who are just trying to delight people in a simple, reasonable way, and I see Bridge as a workaround. Cool, Install Bridge. Oh wait, it crashes instantly on this version of OS X. Just like Lightroom Classic CC (which is why I don't use it).

And so in an act of heroic courage, I put the keys in the dusty ignition of Aperture 3.6, she shudders to life immediately like always, and I import my terrible unalterably-named jpgs that already exported from Lightroom, turn them right back around, and re-export them from Aperture, with perfect, sparkling filenames.

Pour one out for Aperture, with its perfect simple UI, keyboard shortcuts, support for multiple libraries, and yes, custom file naming ability.

[Rocodil]

Hi Dan,

I have been enjoying Aperture for many years like you. However there is this inevitable moment one has to make the switch. You will keep struggling with limitations more and more: you cannot run macOS Mojave and the next OS is already announced. It is not only Bridge that may cause issues, but you receive no updates for Apple Photos, iTunes and other programs any longer. The longer you wait, the more you cut yourself out. And do not forget, the longer you keep Aperture, the more photos from the past you will not be able to revert from the non destructive changes, like your recent wedding pictures. They will turn into permanent changed pictures after exporting.

I have been comparing different types of software and they all have their issues: no good photo managing capabilities, bad browsing performance, missing features. There is no perfect tool. Lightroom CC is the closest to what Aperture offered.

Sure, I still miss the nice slideshows with music integration I could create before; the smart albums; batch renaming; unlimited search filters. But you will have new features as well with Lightroom and it is catching up on those items with regular updates.

The features that are not supported by Aperture are: synchronisation and an App for an iPad or iPhone. With Lr there is no need to save the full picture on you hard drive -(hence you do not need so much disk space any more). Automatic backup of your photos. Aperture does not support new camera RAW (By the way, RAW will increase your adjustment options tremendously!). The Lr texture, clarity and sharpening tools are really good. Aperture does not have a healing tool. The Lr User interface is easy and clean, simpler than Aperture.

I would consider to give Aperture up. I did it a year ago when I could still run both Aperture and Lr in parallel. Unfortunately you do not have that option any longer. What else will happen when you keep waiting?

Best regards
Hans

[Jao vdL]

If you come from Aperture, make sure you look at the right Lightroom. Lightroom CC (now called just Lightroom) is not what you want but Lightroom Classic is. It does the renaming of files, it does slideshows with music, it can actually print, it can export to more than sRGB jpegs, it does smart collections, unlimited searches, it can do keywording using hierarchical keywords, virtual copies etc, etc. Lightroom CC (I.e. the cloud version) does none of these things. The cloud Lightroom is only useful if you do nothing with your files and want all your images available everywhere and look the same and rarely share or export images.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lightroom CC is what I am using. They need to add bulk naming to it. It looks unprofessional to give my clients dorky camera given names. Come on Adobe, get on this!!!

[Jao vdL]

If you are doing this professionally, I would very strongly suggest you do NOT use Lightroom (the cloud version) but you should use Classic. Lightroom Cloud is not able to export files than anything but sRGB jpegs, cannot do any custom naming as you discovered, can't do any real metadata editing, and misses almost every feature you need. The target audience of the Lightroom Cloud is people who only live on the net and don't really share images in any real volume. If you do want to continue doing Lightroom Cloud, you should look into a file renaming utility. There are many of those around that allow you to quickly rename a whole folder of images. That is probably the simplest solution. Lightroom Classic of course does all this natively.

[NHPhoto4]

This is my workaround for this; When you import images into an album in LR CC a corresponding collection is automatically created in LR Classic (if you have Classic set up to sync) under 'From Lr mobile' You can rename your images there, either individually or as a batch and then the new filename(s) will appear in LR CC once they have been updated by the sync process. Hope this helps. (I have also voted for a proper renaming feature to be added to CC though - along with a bigger caption field) 

[Milohosi]

This is a useful workaround, indeed. However, it is intended only for those who have Classic in their subscription. If you have opted for the CC - 1 TB subscription, you have only Lightroom CC and you can't use Classic to batch rename.

[NHPhoto4]

Apologies, I didn't realise, I have the Photography 1TB plan which includes Classic

[dawnh85616637]

I would love it if some batch processing features were added to LR mobile such as the ability to rename groups of files at the same time in a similar manner as you are able to do in the desktop version. Even if it is simply the ability to set the initial part of the name and then to have an automatic serial number added.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I very much want a way to rename files after they have been uploaded into albums. I see that this was a valuable feature in the non-cloud versions, but it is missing from the cloud version. Help, please!

[anmurark]

The latest version of Lightroom now allows you to configure the file name (along with a bunch of other settings) during export.

[jasonmock]

Rename on export *IS NOT* what I (and hopefully we) are asking for, especially since that mechanism is relatively neutered compared to anything we had with Lightroom Classic or Adobe Bridge (e.g., I personally use a format of <Name>-<Capture Date>-<Original Picture Suffix/Sequence Number>).  Currently, from what's being offered I don't see any way of doing anything like this without having to manually enter the custom text and break up my exports by day so the custom text is correct.

Note:  Why does LRCC keep feeling like an exercise in how out of touch the developers are from the users - coming from a Software Engineer.

[tedb]

Agreed - Rename on export is not what we are after. It's useful, but not the goal here (for me at least).
One can edit the Title, Caption, Copyright metadata for a photo but not the File Name. Bulk renaming as well as renaming an individual file when viewing it is important. I understand it's probably stored in the backend with a GUID, but the File Name is obviously captured at import time, so why can't it be edited?

[germapl1]

The fact is that the lack of renaming features can be a SHOWSTOPPER for many (I am sitll thinking of refusing!)

I guess there is a paradigm change with cloud based photos, but the fact is that users of cloud systems (around for a few years) have been renaming fotos for 20 years and, because of different reasons, most of those photos have no geolocation, keywords or even the right capture date! And all these photos are imported into LR CC.

File names have been also the main tool to make images portable between different photo management sw. It is a fact that nobody is going to stick to the same sw the whole life long. I still cannot see how I am expected to organise my photos into LR cc with the new paradigm or how can I find them and how can I make this sw independent! File name was probably the most versatile metadatum so far.