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Renaming multiple files manually can be really annoying. Using the rename command in the shell we can easily re-write the names of multiple files. It is already pre-installed on ubuntu/debian machines.

I'll use renaming tv episodes as an example. to rename a file from "episode 1 name-of-episode.mkv" to "S01E01 name of episode.mkv" type the following command in a terminal in the directory of your files:

rename -n -e 's/episode(\d+)/S01E$1/' *.mkv

Breaking each part of the command down we have:

• 's/ = substitute
• episode = search for 'episode' string in original file
• (\d+) = match 1 or more digits from earlier
• / = end of search string, start of substitute string
• S01E = insert this string, replacing "episode"
• $1 = insert digits from (\d+)
• /' = end of substitute string
• *.mkv = wildcard '*' symbol takes anything after 'episode 1' and inputs it for any mkv file type

The -n argument shows you a preview of the changes to relevant files in the directory. Remove it and repeat the command to execute renaming your files. To learn more about the rename command, type rename -man to bring up the manual.