Recursively rename all files and folders to Title Case from terminal

Solution 1:

To use the script below, you do not need more than the ability to paste :)

How to use

1. Paste the script below into an empty file, save it as (e.g.) rename_title.py
2. make it executable (for convenience reasons) chmod u+x rename_title.py

3. Run it with the directory to rename as argument:

   /path/to/rename_title.py <directory/to/rename>
   

The script

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
import sys
import shutil

directory = sys.argv[1]

skip = ["a", "an", "the", "and", "but", "or", "nor", "at", "by", "for", "from", "in", "into", "of", "off", "on", "onto", "out", "over", "to", "up", "with", "as"]
replace = [["(", "["], [")", "]"], ["{", "["], ["}", "]"]]
def exclude_words(name):
    for item in skip:
        name = name.replace(" "+item.title()+" ", " "+item.lower()+" ")
    # on request of OP, added a replace option for parethesis etc.
    for item in replace:
        name = name.replace(item[0], item[1])
    return name

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(directory):
    for f in files:
        split = f.find(".")
        if split not in (0, -1):
            name = ("").join((f[:split].lower().title(), f[split:].lower()))
        else:
            name = f.lower().title()
        name = exclude_words(name)
        shutil.move(root+"/"+f, root+"/"+name)
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(directory):
    for dr in dirs:
        name = dr.lower().title()
        name = exclude_words(name)
        shutil.move(root+"/"+dr, root+"/"+name)

Examples:

a file > A File
a fiLE.tXT > A File.txt
A folder > A Folder
a folder > A Folder

And more complex, excluding ["a", "an", "the", "and", "but", "or", "nor", "at", "by", "for", "from", "in", "into", "of", "off", "on", "onto", "out", "over", "to", "up", "with", "as"]:

down BY the rIVER for my uncLE To get water.TXT

becomes:

Down By the River for My Uncle to Get Water.txt

etc, it simply makes all files and folders (recursively) Title Case, extensions lower case.

EDIT: I have added all articles, conjunctions and prepositions that do not need to be capitalized according to the capitalization rules for song titles.

Solution 2:

If you use find's -exedir, then the names get passed any command with the leading components of the pathname removed, like ./sOmE fILE. You could then title-case each sequence of word-characters that is preceded by either the leading / or by whitespace, e.g.

find path/ -execdir rename -nv -- 's/(?<=[\/\s])(\w)(\w*)/\u$1\L$2/g' {} +