Mac OS application for downloading AND batch renaming...on the cheap!

January 17, 2011 9:38 AM

Simple Mac OS application for downloading AND batch renaming...on the cheap!

I need recommendations for a simple, low cost application that lets me download and batch rename photos on my Mac running 10.6.5. I currently do this with two separate applications: Image Capture 6.0 for the download and HP Image Browser for the batch renaming.

I do home inspections and take about 10-30 photos of about 8-10 different homes per day. Each set of individual home inspection photos needs to be downloaded into it's own separate folder. Every photo in the folder needs to have the same name as the folder with a sequential suffix.

Here is the work flow:

I download the photos from the usb connection and then use Image Capture to DL the photos to my DropBox folder. I select about 10-30 photos to go into it's respective folder.

For an job at 4003 Main St., I create a folder on DropBox:

DropBox/inspections/main 4003

Within this folder I download the 10 to 30 photos.

When I DL the photos they have the original Canon file name of something like IMG-8210.JPG.

I then open the HP Image Browser and select al of the photos in the 'main 4003' folder. I name the photos the same name as the parent folder with a three digit suffix starting with _001.

DropBox/main 4003/main 4003_001,main 4003_002,main 4003_003…etc.

(I would also like for the application to change he label of the photos, too. I select the color red to indicate the photos I use for the report.)

Now you can see that it is a cumbersome process. I need to simplify it for my not so computer savvy coworkers who want to DL their photos as well.

Thanks,

Miggy

tl;dr: I need a simple free/shareware mac application that can download AND batch rename photos.

posted by MiggySawdust to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

You might try learning a bit of Automator.

Automator is built into your copy of Mac OS X lets you perform actions in multiple applications, strung together into one repeatable "script" or "Workflow".
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:41 AM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

You can do that with Automator, which is free and included with OSX. Take a look at the wikipedia page. It's stupidly easy to create workflows and save them as an app.
posted by dougrayrankin at 9:43 AM on January 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hazel might be worth looking into as well. It can watch a directory and perform various tasks depending on file type, modification date, etc.
posted by slothdog at 10:24 AM on January 17, 2011

I agree with everyone who suggested learning OS X's built-in Automator -- I use it frequently and have found it very helpful.
posted by ambulatorybird at 12:45 PM on January 17, 2011

Once you get walked through it, it's not so confusing. There are some automator tutorials on youtube like this one by a 13 year old girl. You can set up a script that will show up in your right-click menu.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:28 PM on January 17, 2011