# Renaming Files in Light Room Mobile?



## stonestokie

All,

I have recently decided to move from Aperture to LR/PS and LR Mobile via CC Subscription, so far so good!.

I have read the excellent FAQ on LR Mobile and I seem to have come across something no-one has been able to answer yet which make the LR Mobile version flawed in the current version, well in my opinion anyway.

My normal workflow (Desktop) is import images from my camera, I have set up a folder structure (based on year and date of event) to keeps things tidy, I also have a file-rename preset as well which is basically date of the picture, custom text and seq number.  This ensures everything is nice and consistent and no chance of duplicates!.

Right onto Mobile.

One of the great features (I thought!) was the ability to create a new collection on Mobile by selecting pics from iPad/iPhone Camera roll. I thought this would really improve my workflow, however here is the challenge.

I create a new collection and select some pics from camera roll, all sync to LR Desktop fine.

But I know have a new Folder called From LR-Mobile with a copy of the new pics.

So 2 x problems :-

1.  Not in my nice neat folder structure - rename from a normal desktop import
2.  Not using my filename structure  -rename preset form a normal desktop import 

According to the FAQ, I can create a new folder within my nice neat structure and move the images to that.  Ok happy with that!.

However this does not address point 2 re filenames as the import basically takes the names from the camera roll.

So my questions are :-

1.  Can files imported via Mobile be renamed in a bulk way to bring inline with my naming structure?
2.  If not, am I making a big thing of this, or should I just use the filenames used from the iPad import?
3.  How do other people work around this?

I would greatly welcome any feedback and apologies for the long post, but wanted to explain everything!

Many Thanks

Andy J.


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## Victoria Bampton

Hi Andy, welcome to the forum!

You can rename the photos once you've got them back on the desktop - just select them all and go to Library menu > Rename Photos and pick your usual file naming structure.


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## stonestokie

Victoria,

Apologies for the delay in responding, thank you so much for the response!, greatly appreciated!, I will check that out, it would be great if you could somehow select your preferred destination structure so that when it syncs it puts them straight into it!

Will give it a blast and let you know!

Thanks again for taking time out to respond!



Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi Andy, welcome to the forum!
> 
> You can rename the photos once you've got them back on the desktop - just select them all and go to Library menu > Rename Photos and pick your usual file naming structure.


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## dfkotz

I have exactly the same question, and tried the proposed solution.   It worked - almost.   My rename rule is 
Date (YYYY)-Date (MM)-Date (DD)-Image # (00001)
and it applied that rule... but it used image# starting from 00001 instead of the cumulative image sequence number as in the usual import dialog. 
How do I get it to use the same procedure it would have used if I had imported the photos using the import dialog?


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## clee01l

Lightroom does not retain the last generated sequence (there can be several naming templates with a sequence in the naming token) 
If you think that your sequence number is more important than any other, you will have to remember that number and add a (last number+1) in the Starting number field. 
You are better off letting the camera generate the {Filename number suffix} and use that token.


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## dfkotz

I have found LR _does_ remember the sequence number, over time, from import to import.  I like this feature because the number gives a rough sense of the overall sequence of photos imported.  It's not critical  they are in sequence - what I *most* want is for the number to be unique across all imports.  Hence, re-starting from #1 on every import (or rename operation) is not acceptable.  It's pretty common for me to come back from a day of shooting with three cameras to import - one phone and two D500 - and they will all have photos from the same date.  When I use Import three times, the photos all get the same date - but different sequence numbers.  Simple.   but with Lightroom Mobile, and the Rename menu, it ignores the import-sequence number, and assigns sequence numbers from #1.   Ugh.  Surely there has to be a better way than manually remembering and manually entering a sequence number?

Yes, the camera produces a sequence number, for its filenames, but those are small numbers, roll over often, and are not necessarily unique across imports.  So they are not acceptable either.

Lightroom Mobile (and cloud sync) is still a crappy product, but I do use it from time to time, and would like to be able to resolve at least this one pain point.


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