How to bulk rename files to add modification date?

Question

I have these files, which were modified today and yesterday, respectively:

a.txt
b.png

And I want them renamed to:

2020-02-01.a.txt
2020-01-31.b.png

How to do that in a single Bash command?

Possibly related Renaming a bunch of files with date modified timestamp at the end of the filename?. — Paulo Tomé, Feb 01 '20 at 15:57
Does this answer your question? Renaming a bunch of files with date modified timestamp at the end of the filename? — U880D, Feb 01 '20 at 16:24

awvalenti · Answer 1 · 2020-02-01T17:16:19.590

1

ls | while read FILE; do mv "$FILE" "$(stat "$FILE" -c '%y' | cut -b -10). $FILE"; done

Tested on Git Bash on Windows and Linux Mint.

edited Feb 01 '20 at 17:16

answered Feb 01 '20 at 15:52

awvalenti

191

Why not parse ls (and what to do instead)? – αғsнιη Feb 01 '20 at 16:13

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '20 at 16:17

0

Using the Perl-based rename utility:

$ rename -n 'use POSIX qw(strftime); s/^/strftime("%Y-%m-%d.",localtime((stat $_)[9]))/e' *.*
rename(a.txt, 2020-02-01.a.txt)
rename(b.png, 2020-02-01.b.png)

(On some systems, rename may be provided as prename).

answered Feb 01 '20 at 16:17

steeldriver

81,074

this just prints 'rename(f, f2)' it doesn't actually do anything to the files. – TamaMcGlinn Mar 08 '23 at 17:42

How to bulk rename files to add modification date?

2 Answers2