Name Mangler

Release Notes

What's new in Name Mangler?

Name Mangler 3.9.1 - May 22 2024

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• The warning dialog that appears when renaming files on a network volume can now be disabled.
• Fixed a regression where date formatting in Advanced mode ignored a specified minimum number of digits and skipped placeholders under certain circumstances. (Hat tip to Ruben H and others for reporting this one.).

Name Mangler 3.9 - May 7 2024

New Features

• Files that cannot be renamed are now clearly identified in the main window.
• Added a warning if Name Mangler cannot read metadata.
• Added a warning if Name Mangler detects network-hosted files in the renaming list.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Changed wording in the Filter menu to more clearly explain what each item does.
• Date formatting is now more reliable.

Name Mangler 3.8 - Aug 4 2022

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Droplets now get their own creation dates, instead of inheriting their creation date from the Name Mangler app itself. (Hat tip to Peter O. for the suggestion.)
• Revised Services implementation to restore functionality on recent versions of macOS.
• By default, the rename menu item's title is now always "Rename" or "Rename…" (depending on the 'ask before renaming?' preference), which makes it possible to assign a custom keyboard shortcut.

Name Mangler 3.7.3 - Aug 12 2021

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a regression in Name Mangler 3.7.2 where Name Mangler, as available directly from our web site, flat-out ignored its own upgrade licenses, which resulted in limited demo mode for long-term customers who had upgraded from Name Mangler 2 to 3 at some point. We apologize for the hassle, and we're in the process of refunding purchases that have been made because of the seemingly obvious, yet unintended implication that Name Mangler 3.7.2 was a paid upgrade. If you were affected and haven't received a refund yet, please let us know.
• Fixed a regression in Name Mangler 3.7.2 where the "Clear List" menu item became unavailable after renaming.

Long story short, Name Mangler 3.7.2 was cursed. Thanks to everyone who alerted us to that fact!

Name Mangler 3.7.2 - Aug 10 2021

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a bug that caused a crash when dragging files out of the file list.

Name Mangler 3.7.1 - Apr 28 2021

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a bug that caused a crash during drag & drop under rare circumstances. (Hat tip to Anthony N. for finding this one.)
• Fixed a recent regression where dragging in manually ordered files from Finder could result in random reordering. (Hat tip to Peter Z. for finding this one.)
• Various UI improvements.

Name Mangler 3.7 - Feb 24 2021

New Features

• The main window can now be set to float above other windows (Window → Keep in Front).

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Name Mangler now runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
• Improved drag & drop responsiveness on macOS 10.13 and newer.
• Improved the Terms List field's handling of line breaks in files from Microsoft's Office apps.
• The file list area's drop-down menu has been restructured for easier use.
• The drop-down menu for managing the file list is now more visible, especially in macOS 11.
• Numeric metadata that's actually stored as text can now be formatted, just like real numbers in metadata.
• Various Dark Mode improvements, including a more-visible Rename button.
• Updated in-app help with improved navigation between sections.

Name Mangler 3.6 - Nov 14 2019

New Features

• Added a "Group by" feature to the Sequence action. This can be used to create independent sequence numbers for files in different folders, for example.
• Single-file sequences can optionally not have any sequence number. (Focus on the "Group by" input field, then choose "Insert Laziness Indicator" from the "Edit" menu.)
• Title Case conversions can now either keep existing formatting for words shorter than a certain length, or convert them to lowercase.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Resolved an issue that made the Rename button invisible when using Dark Mode and Increased Contrast settings. (Hat tip to William H. for finding this one.)
• The file list can no longer be cleared during a renaming operation.

Name Mangler 3.5 - Mar 4 2019

New Features

• Supports macOS Mojave's Dark Mode.
• New Filter menu item, with new option to only view files with errors or warnings.
• Added a Rename/Revert Touch Bar button.
• Name Mangler is now notarized by Apple and uses the hardened runtime.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Attempted to work around an issue that caused some users' droplets to fail in macOS Mojave. (Hat tip to Shiro W. for finding this one.)

Name Mangler 3.4.1 - Apr 9 2018

New Features

• Hold down Shift in the "List" pop-up menu to select Files, Folders, and Folders Contents with one click. (Hat tip to Paul H. for the suggestion.)
• Set regular expressions' free spacing mode on/off in Name Mangler's preferences.
• Change the default action (Find and Replace) to whatever you like: Set up your action(s), then hold the Option key and select File > Save Default Configuration.
• If Name Mangler is scanning a massive (hundreds of thousands of files) folder and you want it to stop, click the Rename button while the scan is in progress, and it will stop. (Hat tip to Scott V. for the suggestion.)
• New log viewer can display Name Mangler's console messages within the app; this will help us help you if you're having an issue with the app.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• The good/problem/error indicators are now distinct in both shape and color; we apologize for the previously non-differented indicators, which caused problems for color blind users.
• If you exclude files from renaming operations, we now present a (hopefully) much clearer dialog, letting you know that files won't be renamed.
• Updated indicators in the List pop-up menu to more clearly show what's been selected.
• Fixed a bug involving quotes when using Find in Advanced mode renaming actions. (Hat tip to Hermann W. for finding this one.)
• Fixed a crashing bug in the Enter License Code, which very few people should ever have to use. (It's left over from a long-ago promotion.)
• Fixed a bug related to manually entering a value in the Index field of the Insert or Remove action, then using the up and down arrows. (Hat tip to Ajay M. for finding this one.)
• If you're the type who reads help files, we updated the help files for this release.

Name Mangler 3.4 - Nov 22 2016

New Features

• Create Services from Name Mangler actions, making them easily accessible in Finder's contextual menu.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Regular expression support once again includes case conversion i.e. \U, etc.
• Improved handling of unit conversion in bitrate metadata fields.

Name Mangler 3.3.7 - Jul 25 2016

New Features

• A contextual menu for entries in the file list area will reveal the selected file in Finder.
• Name Mangler now uses an Apple-provided regular expression feature (NSRegularExpression).

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a bug where trying to populate with the Finder selection resulted in a crash when there was actually no Finder selection.
• Improved handling of newline characters in text files used for Arbitrary Terms feature.
• [App Store version only] Improved compatibility with macOS Sierra.
• [App Store version only] Fixed a bug where accessing the Finder selection wouldn't work as expected if Name Mangler didn't have file access permission for the selected files already.

Name Mangler 3.3.6 - Apr 7 2016

New Features

• Added new Total Number of Items metadata field.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Improved help with better layout and greatly improved navigation and search.
• Fixed a bug related to preference settings and droplets.

Name Mangler 3.3.5 - Jan 31 2016

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Updated the Sparkle in-app update mechanism to use a secure connection (HTTPS)
• Fixed a bug related to preference settings and droplets

Name Mangler 3.3.4 - Sep 28 2015

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue with OS X 10.11 El Capitan's Gatekeeper.

Name Mangler 3.3.3 - Jul 1 2015

New Features

• All locked files can now be renamed in one operation.
• Added support for grandparent (and higher) folder names in metadata.
• Added a contextual menu in the file list area to remove one entry or clear the list.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Modernized the interface.
• Help has been updated.
• Fixed a smart quote issue in text areas, including Advanced mode.

Name Mangler 3.3.2

This was an App Store release only.

Name Mangler 3.3.1 - Aug 6 2014

New Features

• Allows renaming of locked files, via a dialog asking for permission to do so.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Added accessibility descriptions for the file list and renamer configuration area, for those who use VoiceOver.
• Modified some interface elements in preparation for Yosemite (OS X 10.10).
• Prepared for upcoming Gatekeeper changes.

Name Mangler 3.3 - Oct 18 2013

New Features

• Added tags to metadata field for Mavericks users.
• Name Mangler can now check for changes in Terms List files and use updated values, if present.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a bug in the open source regular expression engine that Name Mangler uses.
• Fixed a bug related to renaming both files and folders in one operation. (Hat tip to Peter N. and Mark H. for reporting this one.)
• Improved interaction between mouse and keyboard in the metadata browser. (Hat tip to Tobias W. for reporting this one.)

Name Mangler 3.2.1 - Jun 11 2013

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a bug which caused a post-renaming crash in the direct version of Name Mangler 3 on OS X 10.6 and 10.7.

Name Mangler 3.2 - Jun 11 2013

New Features

• Added Notification Center support.
• New view option shows spaces, highlighting leading, trailing, and double spaces.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Improved VoiceOver/accessibility support. (Hat tip to Sof suggesting how to improve things.)
• Fixed a bug related to reordering the file list on OS X 10.6.x.
• Fixed a bug that didn't allow pasting in certain text fields in certain conditions. (Hat tip to Chris for reporting this one.)

Name Mangler 3.1 - Apr 8 2013

New Features

• File list area now allows selecting multiple files for removal from the list, or for quick rearranging.
• Added Suffix to the Sequence command, allowing sequences to easily be added to the front of filenames.
• Added yyyy and yyyy-MM date formats; HH-mm and HH-mm-ss time formats.
• Added 'Clear on quit' to History retention options.
• Added 'Number of Files in Parent Folder' metadata item. (Hat tip to Kristaps A. for the suggestion.)

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Command + arrow keys no longer override OS X's built-in text navigation shortcuts.
• Added a warning dialog if the same renaming action is applied twice in a row to the same source files.
• Adding steps no longer automatically shows interim results.
• Fixed a bug related to regular expressions.
• File count metadata types ignore invisible files, if Name Mangler is set to ignore invisible files.
• New logic and controls for selecting a detail display mode when selecting files is enabled.

Name Mangler 3.0 - Feb 27 2013

New Features

• Anywhere from 50 to 100 times faster than Name Mangler 2—rename in excess of 2,000 files per second.
• Over 150 metadata fields (image dimensions, shutter speed, etc.) can be used in filenames.
• Create multi-step renaming actions, and use drag-and-drop to reorder steps.
• Interim name view shows filenames as of any step of a multistep renaming action.
• Full support for retina display Macs.
• Save configurations for easy reuse, and share saved configurations automatically via Box or Dropbox.
• Export configurations to share with others via email, online, etc.
• Use History browser to access any prior renaming action.
• Revert the last-used renaming action.
• Shift-drag to add files to an existing list.
• Delete saved configurations from within Name Mangler. (Hint: Hold down the Option key.)
• Optionally display only the files to be renamed.
• Automatically flag and optionally automatically fix potential duplicates.
• User interface has been modernized, reorganized, and gorgeousized:
  • The '✓ Rename' button is in a more logical and visible spot.
  • Choose from light or dark backgrounds in the file list area.
  • Horizontally resize the rename action area.
  • Status lights next to each proposed filename reveal renaming state (good, bad, no change) at a glance.
  • Tooltips show full original names, new names, and errors.
  • Query field in Find and Replace makes it more obvious when the user is in regular expression mode.
  • Status light next to regular expression reveals syntax checking state (green is good, red is bad).
  • New large icon view.
  • Automatic view mode determines which details to show based on sort order.
• New action: Compose, to start with a completely blank filename.
• New function (Advanced mode): [random (number of characters) from (pool)].

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Finder no longer must be running to use Name Mangler.
• Checks files' writable status and warns user if files are unwritable.
• Split Insert/Remove into two distinct actions.
• Split Prefix/Suffix into two distinct actions.
• Sequence has been greatly simplified, thanks to multistep renaming.
• New Sequence formats: Roman Numerals and Letters.
• Sequence start and increments can be negative.
• Increased the maximum and minimum limits for Sequence values.
• Arbitrary Terms is now a format in the Sequence action.
• Arbitrary Terms can take a CSV formatted file as input.
• Advances in Advanced mode:
  • Auto-complete functions and variables.
  • Tab to next empty parameter.
  • Resizable edit area with auto-indent.
  • Selection (or line) can be shifted in or out via Command-[ and Command-].
  • Find and replace.
  • Save any Advanced program as a Preset for easy reuse.
  • Create snippets of portions of code for easy reuse in other Advanced programs.
  • Automatically sync snippets to multiple Macs.
• iTunes music files cannot be renamed (this will break iTunes, so it's not allowed).
• Faulty regular expression backreferences are ignored.
• Worked around a Cocoa bug that only appeared when renaming files that begin with a tilde. (Hat tip to Joseph B. for finding this one.)
• If a filename won't be affected by a renaming operation, the entire line is grayed out, making it easier to spot the files that will be skipped. (Hat tip to Paul S. for the suggestion.)
• Filenames containing slashes are now changed to colons, matching Finder's behavior.

Name Mangler 2.5.1 - Apr 11 2012

New Features

• File renaming operations that will remove filename extensions now generate a confirmation prior to the action taking place.

Name Mangler 2.5 - Mar 1 2012

New Features

• Added File > Populate (Command-O) to the menu, for those who prefer to use the OS X Open dialog to select files to rename.
• Advanced mode's pad function can now pad at the front (by using a negative length value).
• Advanced mode's truncate function can now truncate from the beginning (by using a negative maximum length value).
• Two new Advanced mode variables (name.extension and .extension) ease some Advanced mode renaming tasks.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Assorted minor fixes and improvements.

Name Mangler 2.4.6 - Oct 6 2011

New Features

• Two new Advanced mode commands (increment and decrement) for doing math-based renaming tasks.
• If you need to rename files to start with a dot, a new hidden pref (defaults write com.manytricks.NameMangler "Allow Dot Prefix" -bool YES) will allow you to do so. (Hat tip to Phil B. for the suggestion.)

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Removed an arbitrary six-digit limit on numbers in sequential renaming. (Hat tip to Siobhan M. for finding this one.)

Name Mangler 2.4.5 - Aug 15 2011

New Features

• An optional parameter (sequence identifier) has been added to the sequence function in Advanced mode. (Hat tip to Kyle K. for the suggestion.)
• Optimized the handling of the progress bar when renaming thousands of files. (Hat tip to Sef P. for the suggestion.)

Name Mangler 2.4.4 - Apr 27 2011

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a regression where some renaming modes didn't work after updating to Name Mangler 2.4.3 (Hat tip to Dirk S. for reporting this one.)

Name Mangler 2.4.3 - Apr 26 2011

New Features

• Advanced mode now supports multiple undo levels (via the Edit menu or Command-Z).
• The forward slash (/) can now be used in renaming actions.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Modifying an existing droplet and then saving it over itself now works as expected. (Hat tip to Scott P. for reporting this one.)
• Text copied from Excel and pasted into the Terms List window now retains its line breaks.
• Newly-created droplets should be better able to find Name Mangler if it's been moved or renamed.

Name Mangler 2.4.2 - Mar 18 2011

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• The 'Ignore trailing...' option, on the Processing tab of Preferences, now works as expected.
• Text fields now auto-expand if the amount of text entered exceeds the available space for display.

Name Mangler 2.4.1 - Jan 20 2011

New Features

• Added Title Case option to the Change Case renaming mode, with control over affected word length.
• Added [titlecase] function in Advanced mode, to control title case options programmatically.
• Added <parent> variable in Advanced mode; it returns the parent folder name of the selected file(s).
• Added a status message to empty Name Mangler file area (Drop files and folders here).

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Renamed 'Filter' to 'Show' to more accurately reflect what those checkboxes do.
• Added a pop-up warning letting users know what happens if they uncheck the Files filter (labeled 'Show' now).
• Help files updated to reflect new functionality.
• Modified how extensions are parsed, to better handle names (typically user-created folder names, which generally lack extensions) with other dots and spaces (i.e. a folder named Section 1.1 Images).

Name Mangler 2.4 - not released

There was no Name Mangler 2.4; this version number was skipped in order to keep the version numbers in sync with the Mac App Store version.

NameMangler 2.3.3 - Jan 11 2011

New Features

• The help files (Help > Name Mangler Help) have been completely rewritten.
• Trial mode is no longer based on timeout dialogs, but on feature limitations.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Name Mangler no longer accepts dropped files directly from iPhoto and Aperture. (Files weren't renamed in prior versions, but they were accepted.)
• The file list will now populate when droplets are used when Name Mangler is already running.
• Modified the dialog that appears when a renaming action creates a naming conflict.
• Name Mangler now respects the Full Keyboard Access setting in System Preferences.

Name Mangler 2.3.2 - not released

There was no Name Mangler 2.3.2; this version number was skipped in order to keep the version numbers in sync with the Mac App Store version.

Name Mangler 2.3.1 - Dec 8 2010

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed a crash that occurred when using the 'populate with Finder selection' button with thousands of files selected.
• Name Mangler can now rename huge numbers (tens of thousands) of files without crashing.

Name Mangler 2.3 - Nov 2 2010

New Features

• Advanced mode now allows user input via a dialog box, and then using the results of that input when renaming. (Hat tip to Andy R. for requesting this feature.)

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• The checkmark button (which applies the defined renaming task) has been replaced with a more-obvious "Rename" button.
• Modified our licensing mechanism for easier support going forward.

Name Mangler 2.2.4 - Oct 26 2010

New Features

• It's no longer possible to uncheck all filters, which would effectively disable Name Mangler.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue with decomposable characters (e.g., accented characters) in Change Case mode. (Hat tip to Andy A. for reporting this one.)

Name Mangler 2.2.3 - Sep 21 2010

New Features

• Added new Replace All button to Name Mangler's duplicate filename warning dialog. (Hat tip to Mike B. for the request.)
• Added "Prepend original name" to "Prefix" section of Number Sequentially, to match the "Append original name" option already available for Suffix. (Hat tip to David C. for the suggestion.)

Name Mangler 2.2.2 - Aug 16 2010

New Features

• Copy and paste can be used to copy files, URLs, and paths to the file list area.
• Drag and drop URLs and paths (e.g., from a text file) to the file list area.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Aliases can now be renamed (prior versions of Name Mangler ignored aliases). (Hat tip to C.P. Williams for reporting this issue.)
• Fixed a bug where non-ASCII characters could go unmatched in regular expressions and/or advanced mode because of Unicode normalization differences. (Hat tip to Daniel Coradi for reporting this one.)

Name Mangler 2.2.1 - Jun 28 2010

New Features

• Added in-app purchasing module.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed an issue where renaming both files and folders may not always work. (Hat tip to Shiro W. for reporting this one.)
• Fixed an issue where dragging both files and folders from Finder could result in duplicate entries, depending on Name Mangler's filter settings.

Name Mangler 2.2 - Jun 2 2010

New Features

• Large preview images can be seen on hover or click (set in Preferences).
• Quick Look previews available with click-after-hover or double-click (in non-hover mode).
• Added 'created' and 'modified' variables to Advanced mode.
• Added the ability to process several top-level expressions in Advanced mode while assigning each expression's result to the <name> placeholder for each step.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Image previews are now threaded and much more efficient.
• License files are no longer saved with the wrong file extension after downloading with some webmail apps.
• Worked around a Sparkle issue that resulted in wrong "last checked" dates being displayed for automatic update attempts under certain circumstances.

Name Mangler 2.1.1 - Mar 25 2010

New Features

• New 'shuffle' mode (Command-S in Sort pop-up) to sequentially but randomly modify filenames; useful for images for a picture frame, for instance.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed permissions issues for users running on non-admin accounts.

Name Mangler 2.1 - Mar 22 2010

New Features

• Automatic updating via Sparkle.

Bug Fixes

• Name Mangler no longer chokes on colons or slashes in pre-existing file names (you still shouldn't use those, though).

Name Mangler 2.0 - Feb 14 2008

New Features

• Files can now be listed in a less detailed way (cf. "General" preferences), allowing you to survey a larger number of files at once.
• You can now have File List ignore " ", "-", "_", and "0" characters when determining the common prefix .
• By default, image files are now represented by previews instead of generic icons (cf. "General" preferences).
• Streamlined the user interface and turned this into a universal binary.

Bug Fixes

• Path Finder support on Mac OS X 10.5.
• Sorting by path.

Other

• Changed product name to Name Mangler.

File List 1.2 - Aug 22 2005

New Features

• You can now have the list of files update instead of being cleared after processing files. (Uncheck the "Clear list after processing files" checkbox in File List's "Processing" preferences.)
• You can now configure File List to quit after processing files successfully. (Check the corresponding checkbox in File List's "Processing" preferences.)
• New function for File List's Advanced Renaming: [truncate] returns a constant with (source expression) truncated to (maximum length) characters if (source expression) is longer than (maximum length). Returns the orginal (source expression) otherwise.
• New function for File List's Advanced Renaming: [pad] returns a constant formed from (source expression) by either removing characters from the end, or by appending as many occurrences of (padding expression) as necessary.
• File List no longer allows making files invisible by specifying a name that starts with a "." character. (Please contact me if you absolutely need this "feature".)
• Reworded some preferences for better understanding.
• Updated File List's documentation with a short paragraph on using back references in regular expressions.

File List 1.1 - Aug 9 2005

New Features

• You can now hide the tool bar of File List's main window.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where droplets didn't behave as documented, i.e., they didn't ignore the "Ask me before actually processing files" setting. (Rebuilding droplets is not required to get this to work as advertised.)

File List 1.0 - June 14 2005

Takeoff

• Initial release in English and German.