Grip Fast Information Services & Technology - How to Change Uppercase to Lowercase Filenames Instantly in the Command Line

Quick and easy command to instantly change filenames from mixed upper case to all lower case names.

This one is short and sweet and a great command snippet to keep handy when others give you mixed case files not knowing Linux understands these differences literally (as different files).

# CHANGES ALL FILE NAMES THAT INCLUDE UPPERCASE FILENAMES INTO LOWERCASE

# STEP ONE: ENTER THE FOLDER THAT CONTAINS YOUR FILES
cd /home/YourUser/SomeFolderwithFiles/

# STEP TWO: RUN THIS COMMAND

for i in $( ls | grep [A-Z] ); do mv -i $i `echo $i | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z'`; done

Basic knowledge on commands can have a tremendous impact upon daily work flows, especially among multi-department projects where one team will send files to another for a web administrator to "just make work." Are you using Linux in your business? If not, contact us and we'll show you how minutes a day can end up saving you thousands of dollars a year per employee massing huge cost savings and value-add to your bottom line.

About the Writer

Author: Chris Lessley

A server admin, dev ops warrior and website designer since 2002, Chris is a lover of all things Linux and open-source! His other interests include fine art and the humanities in the classical tradition and can be found writing for our friends over at gripfastart.works. Each blog topic has been tested by fire in the real world and shared with the hope to help others. Need more help? Hire us!