Remove leading digits from Song Titles?

[Ralf11]

Is there any way to easily automate this process?

 

I have a number of song titles with a one or two digit number and then a space in front of the actual song name.  I'd like to strip these off.

 

e.g. "2 Ramble on Rose"

 

and "12 Estimated Prophet"

 

also, some of the titles have '02' instead of '2'

 

Yes, these are Dead Show downloads...

[tmtomh]

Mac or Windows?

[Ralf11]

Mac

 

[tmtomh]

In that case, if you are using the latest macOS (Mojave) - or maybe even the prior one, I can't recall for sure - you can now bulk-rename files in the Finder. So you can select all the files in a folder, then right-click (or Control-click, same thing) and the contextual menu will come up. Select "Rename X Items..." and then a little window will come in where you can select all kinds of options: add text, remove N characters, and so on.

 

If you are using iTunes and the issue is that song titles in iTunes have unwanted numbers in them, then in that case there are free AppleScripts out there that can batch-change the tags on music in your iTunes library.

 

But from you description it sounds like the Finder-based solution is what you're looking for.

[Ralf11]

Thx - I'll try that.  Ironically, I just had to do some custom renaming of photos in Lightroom today...

[Ralf11]

ok, I cannot see any wildcard for the digits - is there one?

 

e.g. in many text editors (and in MS Word) you can use a wildcard character which will 'stand for' any digit

[semente]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

ok, I cannot see any wildcard for the digits - is there one?

 

e.g. in many text editors (and in MS Word) you can use a wildcard character which will 'stand for' any digit

 

You can use this script but you'll have to replace each individual number+space by nothing:

 

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=searchreplacetagtext

[The Computer Audiophile]

@Ralf11can now moderate this topic. 

[Paul R]

Well, I am really old school about this, as I would use a terminal and a few edit commands. ;). 

 

Something like this might work for you, but would be complex if you are not a RegEx guy... 

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-script-to-rename-file-according-to-delimiters-and-regular-expressions.1915371/#post-21859645.  

 

AppleScript is probably the easiest way though. 

 

-Paul

 

[Ralf11]

Thanks.  I found a Utility to do this.  NameChanger

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21516/namechanger

 

The trick is that each 1 or 2 digit number is followed by a space, so it can simply look for the 1st space it finds and delete any character before that.

[Ralf11]

The Increment Number Tags script from Doug's Scripts for iTunes is also helpful in processing these set lists - it is Donation Ware, so pay something to keep him writing these.

[kirkmc]

Are these tracks in iTunes? If so, this AppleScript will do what you want:

 

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/2012/09/updated-remove-n-characters-from-front-or-back-v4-6/

[Ralf11]

Yes, and thanks.  That would be an alternative to the namechanger pgm, except that here n varies as the numbers in front of the song title can be 1 or 2 digits long

[Ralf11]

BTW, I'm done with everything in the database (for now) but have noticed that iTunes takes > 2 days to update the song names (!!)

[tmtomh]

On 3/13/2019 at 7:52 PM, Ralf11 said:

ok, I cannot see any wildcard for the digits - is there one?

 

e.g. in many text editors (and in MS Word) you can use a wildcard character which will 'stand for' any digit

 

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you'r trying to do, you don't need wildcards,. You can use the Finder's bulk-rename functionality to remove a certain number of characters from the beginning or end of the files' names.

[Ralf11]

I've done did whut I wanted to do, but N.B. the certain number is uncertain, and variable - I encountered either 1 or 2 digits; others could find more perhaps

[kirkmc]

What you would want to do is sort the tracks in alphabetical order; all the ones with digits will be at the top of the list. Remove one character from the tracks with digits, then resort. Then remove one character from the remaining tracks with digits. 

[Ralf11]

Yup - tho the free NameChanger app is quicker and, using wildcards, does it all in one operation.

[TJtennispro]

What’s the verdict? I’ve got the same issue with some of my Dead shows.  

[Ralf11]

not sure what you mean

 

for the mac, I used Namechanger - quick/easy/free

 

also the Finder can be used as per above 

 

for Windows, @One and a half posted a program and has another thread on it - and it will also work on a mac if you run wine

[TJtennispro]

On 4/3/2019 at 12:25 PM, Ralf11 said:

not sure what you mean

 

for the mac, I used Namechanger - quick/easy/free

 

also the Finder can be used as per above 

 

for Windows, @One and a half posted a program and has another thread on it - and it will also work on a mac if you run wine

 

I’ll try namechanger. When I said verdict I meant what’s the best way now that you’ve done the process. 

[Ralf11]

namechanger was easiest for me on a mac

 

Finder would be easiest if you have no variance in string length

 

Like you mine were on Dead tunes, so there was variance