Rename your files

Introduction

There is more involved in organizing and managing your digital music collection than just applying tags to the audio files.

Giving your digital audio files meaningful filenames as well as organizing them in folders on disc is vital. This makes it quicker and easier to browse through your music collection from outside Helium Music Manager, for example in Windows Explorer.

Helium Music Manager is the ideal audio file (such as WMA, OGG, and MP3) renamer. It includes the very handy File Rename Wizard, which helps you to rename your files, and also provides you with the option of organizing the renamed files into auto created directory structures.

The File Rename Wizard works with templates, which means that you can create a template once and then reuse it to ensure that all your files are consistently renamed.

Tasks

• Locating the files you would like to rename
• Create a template which can be reused for future renaming
• Adjusting properties not directly related to the template
• Previewing the resulting filenames and directory structures

Locating the files you would like to rename

To start renaming MP3s and other audio files, locate all the tracks you would like to rename from any of the browsing views available. Select them in the Track List and start the File Rename Wizard by clicking "Tools | Rename Files..." from the Main Menu or press the keystroke CTRL+R.

Note:
To use the File Rename Wizard your files should contain all the relevant tags which you want to use in building the resulting filename.

Create a template which can be reused for future renaming

The first page that is shown when you open the File Rename Wizard is the template editor/main page.

This is where you define your templates, which control how the files should be renamed and optionally which tag information should be used to create directory structures.
To create a new template, you select which fields from the files tags should be used to build the filename and in what order they should appear.

File items
Each template needs to contain at least one so called "file item".
A file item contains information about how each individual filename should be renamed.
You can of course control which information should be used for a file item as well as in which order it should be used.

A typical file item can look like the following: "{Current Track} - {Artist} - {Title}". This keyword information is translated during the rename process to the corresponding tag information, so that a correct filename is generated.

Note:
A template can only contain one file item.

Folder items
A template can optionally contain a so called "folder item".
A folder item works similarly to a file item with the main difference being that it creates a folder instead of a filename.
A template can contain multiple folder items.

Editing a file/folder item

To edit a file or folder item, select the item you would like to edit and click the button located at the bottom toolbar.
A new dialog is opened which allows you to control which fields should be used for the selected item, as well as in what order they will appear.

When you are adding/editing a field which should be used, you can control the following:

• Which tag field should be used
• If the field should have a prefix (a text that will be added before the actual field content)
• If the field should have a suffix (a text that will be added after the actual field content)
• If the field should be included or not in the resulting filename if the contents are empty or whether default text should be used, if the contents are empty.
• If the length of the field should be limited to a specific length
• If numerical values should be padded with a leading zero if the number is below ten.

Adjusting properties not directly related to the template

In the template editor/main page a couple of global settings are available:

Rename Settings

The rename settings allow you to control how the resulting files should be handled.

• Rename files will rename the files in their current location.

• Rename and move files into folders will rename the source files and move them into the optional destination folder.

• Rename and copy files into folders works in a similar manner to Rename and move files into folders, but the source files will remain unaltered in their original folders and are copied and renamed into the destination folder.
   

You can change the destination folder (used in "rename and move files into folders" and "rename and copy files into folders") by simply clicking the button.

To save your active template simply click the Save button.
To load a stored template simply click the Load button.

When you have created and/or loaded the template you would like to use, simply click Next > button to proceed to the preview step.

Previewing the resulting filenames and directory structures

This step of the File Rename Wizards shows you a list with the new filenames and original filenames.
This step allows you to perform final adjustments, if necessary, to the resulting filenames.

If your rename template contains folders, a preview screen displaying the resulting folder structure will be shown. The resulting filenames will also be shown in this preview.

If you would like to see only the resulting filenames click the File Preview tab located above the folder preview. (If your rename template doesn't contain folders, this tab will be selected by default).

When everything is set as you prefer, simply click the Finish button to apply the changes to your files.