How to Rename Hundreds of Files in SOLIDWORKS PDM at Once

A new numbering scheme, a customer who wants their part numbers in the file names, a migration that brought in thousands of badly named files. Renaming in SOLIDWORKS PDM is safe because PDM updates the references, but doing it file by file does not scale.

The manual way

Right-click each file in the vault, choose Rename, type the new name, wait for PDM to update the references. For 500 files, that is a week of clicking and a lot of chances to mistype.

The faster way: rename from a CSV

PDMShell’s renamefromsource renames every file listed in a CSV in one run:

renamefromsource -filePath "C:\data\rename.csv" -evaluatealias

The CSV has three columns:

• File ID: the ID of the file to rename
• New File Name: the new name, including the extension
• Folder ID: the ID of the folder that contains the file

Add -evaluatealias and the new names can use placeholders such as $name, $revision and $yyyy, so one pattern can cover many files.

Building the list

The easiest way to get file and folder IDs is to export them with the search command and the -csv option, then build the new names in Excel with a formula.

Tips

• Try the rename on a test folder first and check the result in Explorer.
• Review the CSV carefully. A rename is real, and every user sees the new names immediately.
• Files that are checked out by someone else, or that you do not have permission to rename, are reported.

Try it on your own vault

Start a free 7-day trial of PDMShell, see plans and pricing, or read the renamefromsource reference. Questions? Book a short call with our team.