Inside the Studios of Brown Bag

We were passed over by howstuffworks.com so, we did our own thing. For the first time ever, you can see the people and studios that make The Bag the force of nature it is.

WORKING FASTER, Part 1 “File Renaming”

We were going to write up a quick post talking about ways to increase workflow efficiency, when we realized what a massive topic it really is. As we started jotting down some quick notes it became apparent that the topic is worthy of several more detailed posts. Thus, we bring you “Part One” of a series of tips to help speed up your work and ease your mind.

In the process of trying to speed up our own workflow, we have discovered the benefits of using file-renaming utilities. No matter how small a boost in speed it may seem at first, it really can add up to some significant time savings the more you get used to the process.

Nobody likes bouncing several mixes of “ConcertPromo_1.wav” versions A through J, and then realizing that all of them need to be changed to “SuperDope_Promo_A.wav” versions 1 through 10. Renaming them manually would cause carpal tunnel and be painfully slow. Although what do we know, maybe you like self-inflicted pain and madness. May we recommend using Tabasco sauce for eye drops? Chuck Norris does, or so the Internet says, and the Internets don’t lie. **

Instead of ruining your eyesight for the rest of the week, we recommend that you try using one of the many file-renaming utilities that will allow you to do many of the following things with your file names.

* add, remove, insert and replace characters and text
* add, format, change and insert sequence numbers, create sequence number lists..
* add file date and time to the beginning and the end, rename to date..
* replace file and folder extensions
* make uppercase, lowercase, title case or sentence case
* create space-saving alphabetical sequences
* truncate, remove vowels, reverse, transpose

Here are a couple File Renaming utilities we like:

A Better Finder Rename (OSX)


Better File Rename (XP)


** Using Tabasco sauce for eye drops is NOT recommended.