However, there’s something I need to do that I can’t figure out how, though, with Finder’s Find/Replace or Rename functions, Automator, Easyfind, or BetterFinderRename. It’s nice to know this feature is built into Sierra. You could also accomplish this batch extension changing process through the command line using a variation of this trick, we’ll cover specifics for that in another article. Generally speaking it’s a good idea to leave the extension change warning enabled, however.
Once you’re finished changing the group of files file extensions you are free to adjust your Finder Preferences back to whatever setting you’d like. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of using the batch Rename feature built-in “Find and Replace” functionality as shown. The extension you are choosing does not matter, though you’ll obviously want to pick one that is compatible and accurately represents the file type otherwise it may make it unreadable to some applications.Ī few important points here: you must have show file extensions enabled on Mac otherwise the file extensions to change will not be visible or found by the replace tool, and secondly you must turn off the file extension change warning otherwise you will be repeatedly confronted with a dialog box to confirm the file extension has changed for each individual file extension change. In the example above we changed a group of image files from having a “.jpeg” file extension to having a “.PNG” file extension, but you can use this with any file extension, whether it’s changing a group of files from having.
It’s a subtle difference but important if all you want to do is maintain file names but change the file extensions. We’re going to use the same rename feature that allows batch renaming of files on the Mac but with a few slight modifications to the usage and related system preferences so that it focuses on changing the file extension rather than the file name. This is also not changing the file names, it is only changing the extension that comes as a file suffix.
We have plenty of articles about various file format and type conversions if you’re interested in that, however.
Remember this is only changing the file extension, this is not actually changing the file type or performing any file conversion.