I switched from FamilyTreeMaker to RootsMagic 7 way back in 2015, and have never looked back. But FTM had one feature that I still miss to this day. When I wanted to rename a media file, I could do that directly in FTM and it would actually change the file name on my hard drive.
The following is the most efficient way I have found to accomplish the same action in RootsMagic. (I’m on Windows 11) My goal is to eliminate the need to retype the name more than once to avoid extra work and mistakes.
In RM10 open to the Media tab
Open File Explorer in separate window to the directory I have all my media in.
In RM highlight the name of the file I want to change, excluding the path and the suffix, and Ctrl-C copy to clipboard.
Alt-Tab over to File Explorer and paste that into the search field. It filters down to just that file.
Alt-Tab back in RM, change the name of the file to something meaningful.
Highlight and copy the new file name to my clipboard.
Click the checkmark to save my new file name in RM.
Alt-tab back to File Explorer, invoke the Rename function, and then paste the new name over the old name, and save it.
My feature request is to allow me to change the name in RM and have it make that same change in the file system.
In the meantime, if anybody has a more efficient way to do this, I’d love to hear it. I have tons of media files I need to rename because I foolishly synced them over from Ancestry and got stuck with their meaningless names.
Since the media files are on the computer – I am not sure I would want a program monkeying around with my file system. I believe I understand what you are looking for and why and it would make things simpler – there are apps that could potentially do both steps outside of RM UI –
In Rm10’s Media tab, click the current filename and a little button for Windows File Explorer appears, which (when clicked) shows the file.jpg name directly within File Explorer. Double-clicking that original name (on the disk file system) in the File Explorer window allows renaming it (directly) and also updates the Filename block in RM to the new name.
These steps will rename the file and update the filename field simultaneously:
Click on the Filename field of the Edit Media pane and then on the “document icon” at the far right (See image below.)
Navigate to the media file that you want to rename
Right-click and choose the “rename” option
Rename the file and select the “Open” button
I always click on the green checkmark out of habit but it seems like any action (including the Close button, exiting out of the Media window back to the Edit Person window, or selecting a different media file from the Media Window) will save the change.
Note that when you click on the document icon, the OS file manager will open to the default media folder defined in RM Settings. If you are doing a lot of changes you might want to consider temporarily adjusting the default media folder setting to the default treeshare download folder (assuming that’s where your media files are located). This will speed up the rename process. However, it’s a bit of double edged sword because of RM use of relative paths. (One of the relative paths that RM utilizes is the location of the media file relative to the default media folder.) So, if you change the default media folder setting, when you’re all done, after setting the default media file back to where it was, you’ll want to run the “Fix Broken Media Links” tool.
Also, for what it’s worth, my ‘post-treeshare’ workflow is to update source/citation details and rename the media file including moving it out of the default treeshare download folder. That way I know that any media file in that download folder has actions pending. I don’t believe that you can change the folder using the above process, so if you want to establish a different folder structure that needs to be a separate follow-on action along with a subsequent run of the “Fix Broken Media Links” tool.
I’ve been considering writing an external utility to modify filenames both in the RM database and in the filesystem.
I’d say that just changing the directory path path is already handled very well by RM “Fix broken links” command.
Anybody want to help design such a utility?
I’m guessing that the utility would fist request a folder path from the user and then list the files in that folder. The user would then select a file to rename and give the new name. The utility would change the name on disk and in the MultiMediaTable.
Would this actually be faster than my current method which is to have the disk folder open in an explorer window side by side with the RM window and make the change in both?
I was going to post how to do a file rename from within RM, but I see that two other users have already posted how to do it. Nevertheless, I have two comments.
Even though it’s possible to do the rename from within RM, the process to do so is onerous. The process should be much easier.
Part of the reason the process is onerous is the issue already mentioned that when you are doing the process, RM goes first to the default media folder rather than to where the media file already is. Even if a full blown and easy to use “rename media files from within RM” tool is not added to RM, it still would be a great help if only RM would go to where the media file already is when you are going to rename the file.
When you click on the file open dialog icon at the end of the path line, as has been said, the folder opened is the media folder. However, I just noticed that the filename has the full path. I believe that there is an option when opening Windows File dialogs that tells it to open the mini explorer to the folder in the given path. So I think that an effort was made to do the right thing, but there is a bug in the specified File dialog options.
From the developer’s point of view, all RM knows is that you are going to switch from the existing media file to a different media file. It doesn’t know that while you are in the Windows File dialog that you are going to rename the existing media file and then choose the renamed file as your replacement media file. So from the developer’s point of view, they may be expecting the user to find their replacement media file in their default media folder. So they may have coded it that way on purpose.
If so, then I don’t think that’s the best expectation. I think a better expectation is that the user is likely to want to find their replacement file in the same folder as the existing file. And in any case, the user can always navigate to the correct folder. But it’s best to default to the most likely folder, and I think that’s the folder where the existing media file is located.
But an even better approach would be a feature to do a straightforward and simple rename of a media file from within RM without seeing a Windows or Mac file dialog at all.
If the user copies the contents of the Filename block, then clicks the icon to open Windows File Explorer, they can click into the Address bar at the top of File Explorer and Paste the desired full file path and press Enter key or click the right-arrow icon (Go to). Then change the name.
That’s more or less what I do, except that instead of the Address bar at the top of FIle Explorer I paste into the “file name box” lower on the screen. Either way, the Paste is tricker than it sounds because what has been copied from the Filename block in RM is that file path plus the file name, and what you really want at this point is just the file path.
Thanks for the suggestions at more optimal ways to change the media file names. First I’ll mention that because I have chosen a single dedicated media directory for each of my RM trees, I don’t have the challenges with changing directories that some have discussed.
But I am struggling to make the workflows that @kbens0n and @kevinm described work. I successfully click in the file name field, then click on the tiny little icon to open up the Select Filename dialog box. And then I can visually hunt for the file I want to change, although it is a pain to do so because of the horrible names I am trying to change.
But the next step is where I’m hung up. I can’t seem to get it to allow me to change the file name in this mode. Double-clicking takes me right back to RM where I started. Right-clicking brings up an extensive menu of options, but ‘rename’ is not among them.
If I can get your suggestions to work, it will be a more streamlined process than what I started with. But I stand by my original feature request suggestion.
Taking RootsMagic out of the equation for a second, imagine the process of renaming a file in Windows. You do that in File Explorer. That’s the “how”. Two clicks upon the name. The first highlights (gives focus to) it and the second click causes the part of the filename to the left of the period and filetype extension to become editable.
Now the only difference with RootsMagic in the equation is bringing up that File Explorer window.
I think I know what’s wrong, and I made a video to show how to get around the problem. But I can’t seem to get into my screencast account today to post the video, so let’s see if I can describe it in words.
When you copy the full file path in RM, you will be copying the full file path plus the file name. There’s nothing wrong with that, and that’s the way it works.
Then when you get into the Windows File Open dialog, you will paste the complete file path which will include the file name. If all you do at point is click Open, it will “change” to that file name which is the file name you are already using and you won’t have an opportunity to do the rename. So after pasting the full file path plus file name, you have to remove the file name. After doing the paste into the Windows File Open dialog, click at the right end of the file name and backspace until the file name is gone and the full file path of folders remains. Then, click the Open dialog box.
You will now be in the folder. In your case, you said it would be the same folder you are already in, but that’s ok. Now, find the file that needs to be renamed. You can right click it to rename it or you can F2 to rename it. So rename it and select it.
Ah, a silly mistake on my part. It turns out I was clicking on the icon image of the file, instead of on the filename. That made all the difference, thanks.
