Rename files to lowercase in Powershell

user_96233 0
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I am trying to rename a bunch of files recursively using Powershell 2.0. The directory structure looks like this:

Leaflets
+ HTML
  - File1
  - File2
  ...
+ HTMLICONS
  + IMAGES
    - Image1
    - Image2
  - File1
  - File2
  ...
+ RTF
  - File1
  - File2
  ...
+ SGML
  - File1
  - File2
  ...

I am using the following command:

get-childitem Leaflets -recurse | rename -newname { $_.name.ToLower() }

and it seems to rename the files, but complains about the subdirectories:

Rename-Item : Source and destination path must be different.

I reload the data monthly using robocopy, but the directories do not change, so I can rename them by hand. Is there any way to get get-children to skip the subdirectories (like find Leaflets -type f ...)?

Thanks.

UPDATE: It appears that the problem is with files that are already all lower case. I tried changing the command to:

get-childitem Leaflets -recurse | if ($_.name -ne $_name.ToLower()) rename -newname { $_.name.ToLower() }

but now Powershell complains that if is not a cmdlet, function, etc. Can I pipe the output of get-childitem to an if statement?

UPDATE 2: This works:

$files=get-childitem Leaflets -recurse
foreach ($file in $files)
{
    if ($file.name -ne $file.name.ToLower())
    {
        rename -newname { $_.name.ToLower() }
    }
}
rename recursive-descent powershell
8 Answers

There are many issues with the previous given answers due to the nature of how Rename-Item, Piping, Looping and the Windows Filesystem works. Unfortunatly the the most simple (not using aliases for readability here) solution I found to rename all files and folders inside of a given folder to lower-case is this one:

Get-ChildItem -Path "/Path/To/You/Folder" -Recurse | Where{ $_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToLower() } | ForEach-Object { $tn="$($_.Name)-temp"; $tfn="$($_.FullName)-temp"; $nn=$_.Name.ToLower(); Rename-Item -Path $_.FullName -NewName $tn; Rename-Item -Path $tfn -NewName $nn -Force; Write-Host "New Name: $($nn)";}
user_3939690

A small but important correction to the answer from Jay Bazuzi. The -cne (case sensitive not equal) operator must be used if the where-part should return anything.

Additionally I found that the Path parameter needed to be present. This version worked in my setup: 

gci -Recurse | 
    ? { $_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToLower() } | 
    % { ren $_.Name -NewName $_.Name.Tolower()  }
user_129191530

for everyone who is following this thread; the following line can also be used to lower both files and directories.

Get-ChildItem -r  | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name.ToLower().Insert(0,'_') } -PassThru |  Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name.Substring(1) }

Main post: https://stackoverflow.com/a/70559621/4165074

user_41650740
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