[HowTo] Add Thunar bulk rename capabilities to Dolphin file manager

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1

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

I was an XFCE user for years and I recently switched to KDE Plasma. Dolphin file manager is great but it’s Batch Rename capabilities are limited compared to the Thunar file manager. In this tutorial we are going to add Thunar’s bulk rename actions to Dolphin.

  1. Install Thunar and the Media Tags Plugin with:

    pamac install thunar thunar-media-tags-plugin

  2. Navigate to .local/share/kservices5/ServiceMenus/ and if any of the folders don’t exist, just create them.

  3. Inside the ServiceMenus folder create a file named bulk-rename.desktop.

  4. Open the file with your favourite editor and add the following:

    [Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
ServiceTypes=KonqPopupMenu/Plugin
MimeType=all/all;
Actions=BulkRename;
X-KDE-StartupNotify=false
X-KDE-Priority=TopLevel

[Desktop Action BulkRename]
Name=Bulk Rename
Icon=thunar
Exec=thunar -B %U

  5. Save the file.

  6. Close the Dolphin file manager if it is running and reopen it.

You will now find the Bulk Rename options when you select a couple files and right click on them.

3 Likes
2

As a long time KDE user I am a great fan of Krename: I love its advanced (but instead very easy) tab to rename dozens and even hundreds of files at a time, and how it magically appears in the dolphin menu you evoke by right clicking after selecting the stuff you are interested in.

Anyway, thanks for the tip: I have not played so much with Thunar and I will give it a try! :slight_smile:

I have learned some new interesting tricks! :+1:

3 Likes
3

Thanks a lot
the only thing missing in kde :smiley:
Anyway to make it default for f2?
Hope manjaro team defaults this is in some way :3

4

Maybe take a look at krename.

1 Like
5

No krename is bad if u have used thunar rename tool :no_mouth:

8

This How-To does not seem to be working in KDE 6. You can use this instead:

last post / same date as this one.

9

I love Krename’s preview mode.

GPRename is also excellent (the one I installed before I got used to using Krename).

10

Regardless of the actual desirability of this guide, it is currently inaccurate for Plasma 6.

I would check and update it myself … but frankly dont want to.

Maybe a replacement using krename …

It may also be worth mentioning that dolphin has embedded (somewhat primitive) renaming capabilities.

Most everyone probably knows you can … erm … rename a file by clicking on it, using F2, etc.

Simply select multiple files and similarly select ‘rename’ from the right-click menu or otherwise and you will be presented with a dialog to rename all selected files. Even including a # variable to add sequential numbering.

Imgur

Imgur

1 Like
11

@cscs

You can do the same with krename

Just install krename

pamac install krename

Then

Save this into ~/.local/share/kio/servicemenus/ (for Plasma 6) as bulk-rename.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
ServiceTypes=KonqPopupMenu/Plugin
MimeType=all/all;
Actions=BulkRename;
X-KDE-StartupNotify=false
X-KDE-Priority=TopLevel

[Desktop Action BulkRename]
Name=Bulk Rename
Icon=krename
Exec=krename %U

Actually you don’t even need to do that, as krename may actually get included in the context menu as soon as it’s installed. Just selecting multiple files seems to trigger it’s inclusion, if you have selected it in the Dolphin Setting → Configue Dolphin → Context Menu options.

1 Like
12

I just installed it, and the service menu items are there even before I wanted to add your file:

https://i.imgur.com/p7vMG4g.png

And checking /usr/share/kio/servicemenus:

$ ls -lah /usr/share/kio/servicemenus
total 44K
 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Dec 14 07:54 .
 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K May 29  2023 ..
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.9K Nov  5 16:38 dragonplayer_play_dvd.desktop
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.8K Nov 27 08:44 installfont.desktop
 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2.8K Nov  5 16:57 kget_download.desktop
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4.9K Nov  5 16:57 kget_plugin.desktop
 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4.1K Nov  5 18:07 konsolerun.desktop
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.6K Feb 29  2024 krename_all_nonrec.desktop
 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.4K Feb 29  2024 krename_dir_rec.desktop
1 Like
13

I didn’t think to look there.

1 Like