Dolphin's Rename Items tool when renaming folders removes period and any text following it

Help
,
1

Hello!

I’ve noticed an odd behavior when using the bulk Rename Items tool in Dolphin on folders in particular. If the folder’s name contains a period, then using the Rename Items’ “Replace Text” or “Add Text” options will end up stripping out all of the right-side text starting at the period. This happens despite the Preview that is shown still retaining the period and trailing text.

I’ve also tested on folders with multiple periods, and it seems only the last period in the folder name is where this text stripping starts. I presume this is related to how file name extensions are handled for regular files, and it is being unintentionally applied to folders as well.

Here are some examples that can be tested…

Original folder names:

  1. folder name 1. has a period
  2. folder name 2. has a first period. and a second

After running Add Text rename adding "this is a " to the beginning of the filenames:

  1. this is a folder name 1
  2. this is a folder name 2. has a first period

This behavior happens with both the Add Text and Replace Text options, like I said. It only affects text that is already present in the file names (i.e. new text that contains a period that is being added to the file names is not subject to this behavior).

2

I cannot find this option in Dolphin. Usually use the command line…

I wonder if the you are entering a regex and you have .* in that regex that matched lots of the filename?

3

I only found the Rename Items tool myself recently. It’s been super useful for some organization tasks that I do in the GUI sometimes. To make use of it, just select at least two files and then initiate a rename (F2 or you can use the context menu).

It looks like the “Replace text” option does allow for regex patterns, but I’ve just been using plain strings.

Recorded a quick demo showing it in action

Screencast_20260810_111454

4

I think you have found a bug. You should report it in the kde bug tracker I think.

At the least the result is surprising if intended!

Both add text and replace text fail to do what I’d expect as well.

5

Indeed! I tried my best to make sure this wasn’t a duplicate discussion thread, yet I somehow missed that there is an entirely separate bug report system. :person_facepalming:

Looks like this bug has already been reported there as well: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=514938

Thanks for your help!