PhotoRenamer is a free Windows tool which can rename photos from the usual DCS014752.jpg-type garbage to something more consistent and meaningful.

The program opens with an Explorer-like tree view. Browse to the folder containing your images and thumbnails are displayed, eventually (it seems much slower than Explorer).

Files are renamed by using a custom mask. This defaults to %Y-%m-%d %H-%M-%S, which effectively replaces the existing name with the image date and time, using dashes as a separator: “2017-2-23 16-23-06.jpg”.

The program comes with four similar masks, and you can edit these or create your own, optionally using EXIF or IPTC tags.

Select any mask and the image thumbnails display both the current file names and the new ones, a handy preview of what PhotoRenamer is going to do.

Browse images, EXIF and IPTC thumbnails from within the program

By default files are renamed in the folder where they’re currently located, but there are two unusual alternatives.

“Backup Rename” copies your selected files to a backup folder and renames the files in the source, while “Target Rename” copes the files to a backup folder with the new name.

Whatever your renaming rules, there’s always the chance of creating new duplicate files. PhotoRenamer handles this automatically by adding -001, -002-type suffixes, but this is also customisable.

There’s a lot of power here and some unusual touches, but PhotoRenamer isn’t always intuitive or easy to use. Fortunately, there’s plenty of help, including video tutorials which display from within the program, to point you in the right direction.

PhotoRenamer is a free tool for Windows XP and later.