This is the RawLine Rename window, with a folder of 842 files. Tap the numbers, or use the arrows, to see what each part does.
Drag the folder onto the window, or choose Open Folder… (⌘O), or from the Finder: right-click › Services › Open in RawLine Rename.
You work on one project at a time. Earlier folders stay in File › Open Recent and on the start screen, without getting mixed in.
Show only RAW, JPEG or video, or only warnings and errors. ⌘-click to pick more than one.
Each camera is recognised by its serial number, so two bodies of the same model stay apart. Give it a tag once (AP1, R5…) and it lands in the name by itself.
Preset keeps the name and the changes for the next shoot (⌘S). There are ready-made blueprints too: weddings, sport, advertising, travel.
Order decides whether the counter follows the shooting time or the file name. Next to it, the guide and the ladybug to report a problem.
Each tile is a piece of the name, showing the first file's value. Click for options, drag to move it. Between two tiles is the separator for that spot: _, -, space, dot or nothing.
After the name come the changes: replace a word, remove text, add a prefix, upper and lower case, clean up accents and emoji, change the extension, regular expressions.
They apply from top to bottom. Turn one off without deleting it, move it, duplicate it.
For every file, the name it has now and the new one, updated as you type. No file is touched until you press Rename.
The photo, the name it will get and how it's built step by step: if something looks off, this is where you see why.
Two cameras with different times? Select two photos taken at the same instant, choose the one with the right time and the other one lines up. It works for a trip's time zone too. Files aren't modified.
One click on Rename (⌘↩): 15,000 files in about 2 seconds. No file is ever overwritten.
With the keyboard: the ← → arrows on the window.
Preview and rename a whole archive in less time than it takes to decide on the name.
Bodies recognised by serial number and clocks lined up: shots from several photographers in one order, the real one.
You see every name before applying. If a name is taken it stops before starting, and the original name can always be restored.
Measured on a MacBook Pro M1 Max with 15,000 files on the internal drive: preview 0.5 s, rename 1.8 s. Shooting data is read at about 1,700 RAW files per second, while you work. On external and network drives, times depend on the drive.
Set the name up once, keep it with Save Preset and pick it from the toolbar on the next shoot. Start from a blueprint (wedding, sport, advertising), replace the placeholder words and save it as your own.
One camera was 2 minutes behind, another still on home time? Write the difference in Settings › Camera Bodies, or line up two photos of the same instant. Dates and numbers are corrected, the files aren't.
A concert, a wedding, an aurora: photos after midnight stay in the day the evening began, after a pause or from a fixed hour. With hundredths, bursts in the same second get different names too.