Can Lightroom export use only part of a folder name in the filename?

Asked 6/18/2014

72 views

2 answers

I store each article’s photos in folders named like YY-MM-DD_name-of-article. On export, I need filenames in the format DDMMYY_name-of-article_resort_journalist. I can build most of this with an export preset, but I’m using the folder name to avoid retyping the article slug. The issue is that Lightroom includes the entire folder name, so I get DDMMYY_YY-MM-DD_name-of-article_resort_journalist.

Is there a way in Lightroom to use only the portion of the folder name after the underscore when exporting, or is there a better workflow for this?

folders file-renaming workflow lightroom export

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

12y ago

2 Answers

Probably better off just using a tool specializing in this issue. For windows I would recommend Renamer or Bulk Rename Utility.

Originally by user20008. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user20008

12y ago

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Lightroom’s export renaming tools don’t offer substring parsing of folder names, so you generally can’t tell it to use only the part after the underscore.

Based on the suggestions here, your practical options are:

Change your folder structure/naming so the folder name contains only the article slug you want exported. For example, put the date in a parent folder and keep the article folder as just the article name.
Use a dedicated batch renaming tool after export if you need more complex filename logic than Lightroom provides.

So the short answer is: not directly in Lightroom. If you want the least manual work, either simplify the folder names Lightroom reads from, or export normally and run a batch rename step with a renaming utility.

Can Lightroom export use only part of a folder name in the filename?

2 Answers

Your Answer

Related Questions