ren (or rename) is a shell command for renaming a file and in some implementations (such as AmigaDOS) a directory.

Some shells with also provide a move command that provides for moving between directories. On systems that do not support a move command (such as MS-DOS older than 6.00), the user could copy a file to a new destination and then delete the original file. In DOSBox, ren can move files.

The command is in various shells such as COMMAND.COM, Command Prompt, 4DOS, 4NT and PowerShell. In MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 1 and later. In PowerShell, ren is a predefined alias for the Rename-Item Cmdlet which serves the same essential purpose.

Similar commands are available in many operating systems. The command is available in the CP/M, MP/M, Cromemco DOS,CDOS USER'S MANUAL TRIPOS, OS/2, ReactOS, SymbOS, and DexOS. Multics includes a rename command to rename a directory entry, which could be contracted to rn. A command which in some cases can be contracted to ren is provided in Stratus VOS, RT-11, OS/8,"Concise Command Language" (CCL). RSX-11, ISIS-II,ISIS II Users Guide iRMX 86,iRMX™86 INTRODUCTION AND OPERATOR'S REFERENCE MANUAL For Release 6 TOPS-20, Z80-RIO, FLEX, OS-9, FlexOS, 4690 OS, MPE/iX, THEOS/OASIS,THEOS/OASIS User's Handbook and OpenVMSOpenVMS User's Manual A rename command is supported by 86-DOS. (59 pages) DR DOS 6.0 includes and commands.DR DOS 6.0 User Guide Optimisation and Configuration Tips PC-MOS includes an implementation of rename.PC-MOS User Guide It is also available in the MS-DOS emulator DOSBox.

Example

The following renames file to .

> ren foo bar

The following renames a file specified by a fully qualified path. The first parameter may contain drive and path information, but the second parameter must be only a file name.

> rename "C:\Users\Public\Videos\Sample Videos\Wildlife.wmv" Wildlife2.wmv

The following removes abcd of a file name in Command Prompt based on the following rules:

Same number of / as the number of characters to remove Requries double quotes for both arguments Won't remove . from a file name

> rename "abcd*.txt" "////*.txt"

See also

List of DOS commands List of PowerShell commands

References

Further reading

External links ren | Microsoft Docs