The purpose of special argument -, which is supported by most utilities, is to signal that subsequent arguments should be treated as operands (values), even if they look like options due to starting with -, as Jacob C. Similar to the bash solution, s/././ performs text substitution, but - unlike in bash - true regular expressions are used. Automator is a handy application that comes included with Mac OS X, so it should already be on your Mac computer.Here's the equivalent of the command at the top using rename: rename -n -e 's/_.*_/_/' *.pngĪgain, this command performs a dry run remove -n to perform actual renaming. On macOS you can install it using popular package manager Homebrew as follows: brew install rename If you find yourself batch-renaming files frequently, consider installing a specialized tool such as the Perl-based rename utility. Alternatively, right-click (or Ctrl-click) one of the selected files in the Finder window.

Note that _*_ is a pattern (a wildcard expression, as also used for globbing), not a regular expression (to learn about patterns, run man bash and search for Pattern Matching). Click the Action button in the Finder toolbar.sudo scutil -set HostName NewHostNameHere Lowell Heddings Lowell is the founder and CEO of How-To Geek. Done You can also change it from the Terminal using this command, though obviously it’s much simpler to just change it under Sharing. In your specific case you can use the following bash command ( bash is the default shell on macOS): for f in *.png do echo mv '$f' '$' is an application of bash parameter expansion: the (first) substring matching pattern _*_ is replaced with literal _, effectively cutting the middle token from the name. Just open up System Preferences, go to Sharing, and change the computer name.

Macos rename