Ant Renamer

Ant Renamer is a free app (the source code is available as well) designed for Microsoft Windows® operating systems. This software was created by Antoine Potten, he is a programmer from Belgium.

The software title "Ant Renamer" comes from combination of his first name and the function "Renamer", similar to IrfanView (Irfan being a part of the author name).

I found it back in 2011 if I recall correctly and while it is an old project it is still maintained by Antoine and quite useful for renaming tasks. This app was made to assist users in renaming many files and directories at once - a great free batch file renamer for Windows® platform.

Please note: The software only modifies the names of files, it doesn't touch the actual content inside those files when performing operations.

Below you can find the main capabilities of this software. Unicode filename support (for Windows NT based systems - 2000, XP, Vista and 7), adding text strings, sequential numbering, extension modification, substitution of text strings, letter case transformation, generating random names, usage of regular expressions and much more.

Additionally, the software has translations in 16 different languages. You can even use it on very old Microsoft Windows operating systems such as Windows 95® - but you must download version 2.0.4 or earlier, the latest releases are not compatible. Older releases can be found on the official site - here: https://update.antp.be/renamer/old/

Alternatives: There are many alternatives such as Bulk Rename Utility, Advanced Renamer, ReNamer but most of them are freemium apps which comes with different strategies to make you buy the pro version - which might offer you a more modern User Interface. Others such as KRename are limited to Linux users only and the only notable one that I am aware off and worth a mention is Rename Master.

Ant Renamer Review

Ant Renamer is distributed in two different formats. One format is the "standard" installer file which lets you install the software on your computer. Another format is a ZIP package, this is the portable edition.

The size of both packages (installer and the portable) is small, approximately 1 MB.

It is amazing that AntRenamer runs from one of the oldest Windows and up to the latest version - I was able to install it on Windows 11 in Parallels (the ARM version of Windows).

Again, this app was designed to help you in renaming many files and directories simultaneously. To put it simply: it is a batch file renamer.

The user interface looks old but it is simple and easy to understand.

You just need to add your files, then you work with the "Actions" area. There are many different actions available, I will not list all of them.

What matters is that the software can be used for basic tasks (simple renaming operations) or you can do advanced string replacement operations. One example is, the possibility to combine and use multiple actions which creates a complicated batch process.

Even more useful: there is a preview function that helps to avoid unwanted outcomes.

Finally, when I consider the simplicity, functionality and the fact that Antoine kept it free for more than 23 years, I can recommend this software as one of the top batch file renamers for Windows. Please help the development and think about making a donation to encourage Antoine to keep it updated for as long as possible.

No release notes available