Settings#

The Settings screen can be found by clicking the gear icon at the bottom right of the window.

Appearance#

App theme#

Choose which colour scheme to use: Light mode, Dark mode, or let the system setting take precedence.

Defaults to “Use system setting”.

Highlight the parts of the filename that will change when renamed#

Deleted characters will be shown in red; added characters in green. This will be familiar to those that have used a ‘diff’ program.

Defaults to “On”.

Hide common parent folders among file paths#

Most of the time, we expect you will be only renaming the file name or nearby folders, so rather than show the full file path (which could be C:\very\very\very\long\indeed.pdf), the unchanged part of the path will be abbreviated to ...\

This setting can also be toggled in the main bulk rename screen using the button above the File Queue labelled ...\

Defaults to “On”.

Shell context menu (Windows File Explorer right-click menu)#

This is the menu that appears when you right-click on a file or folder (or a selection of files or folders) in Windows File Explorer or other programs that integrate with the Windows shell (e.g. file search programs like Everything by voidtools)

Add an entry to shell context menu#

When set to “On”, an item “Rename items with Filename Tidy” will be present in the shell context menu.

The behaviour of what the entry does when clicked depends on the setting below, One-click rename.

Defaults to “On”.

Note

If you have just recently installed Filename Tidy, you may need to restart the Explorer process before Filename Tidy appears as an item in its right-click menu. You can do this by:

opening Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Escape),
select the “Processes” tab,
select “Windows Explorer” then select “Restart Task”.

or you can restart your computer.

Note

On Windows 11, you may need to hold down the shift key when you right-click to see the Filename Tidy entry. Alternatively, select the “Show more options” entry at end of the context menu.

One-click rename#

When set to “On”, clicking the “Rename items with Filename Tidy” context menu entry will rename the files immediately using your current Rename Steps. The app window will only be shown if there is an error.

When set to “Off”, clicking the “Rename items with Filename Tidy” context menu entry will always show the app window, add the files to the File Queue, and await further instruction from you.

Defaults to “On”.

Rename history#

Store history of bulk renames#

When set to “On”, every bulk rename is recorded in a history database on your computer. These can be seen in the History screen and used to undo a bulk rename, entirely or partially.

Defaults to “On”.

Maximum number of bulk renames to store in history database#

Beyond this number, older history entries will be deleted to make room for new entries.

Defaults to 200.