File Pairing

What is file pairing?

In many common creative fields such as photography, videography, audio engineering and aerial drone operation, footage and recordings are connected only via their file names. A RAW photograph & JPEG preview may for instance look something like this:

2023_09_22.CR3
2023_09_22.JPG

Other examples are image files and Adobe-style “sidecar” files such as .xmp files with metadata, or DJI .mov files with corresponding .gps files, etc.

For obvious reasons, you will not want to lose that link when you rename the files.

Better Rename lets you use the file pairing feature to link such files together so that they are renamed as one.

How do I use file pairing?

This is achieved via the Advanced Options action.

• If the Advanced Sidebar is not yet open, click on the Show Advanced Sidebar button to reveal it
• If not already selected, select the Actions tab
• Click on the “cogwheel” icon on the bottom right of the action list to create a new Advanced Options action
• If necessary, select the Advanced Options action in the action list

You will see multiple checkboxes with various features.

• Tick the Use File Extension Pairings checkbox

You will see two text input fields: Take names from: and Apply to:.

The file extension pairing system works by making the names of all the files that match the file extensions in the Apply to list (the target file) completely dependent on the file with the same name that matches the file extensions in the Take names from list (the source file).

If no source file can be found for a given target file, the target file name remains unchanged.

The algorithm will take the name of the first matching source file that it finds. So if you define multiple source file extensions, the name of the file with the first matching extension will always be used.

This mechanism is fairly robust but takes place before the file name conflict resolution, so it’s important to properly check your file names before proceeding with your rename, as final file names could still diverge if there are file name conflicts. In practice, this can only become a problem in very complex situations, but it is worth looking out for.

The feature is called file pairing, but you can obviously have multiple target files linked to a single source file.