Templates

Templates are the center of RenamerX customization. They define what fields matter, in what order they appear, how dates are formatted, what separator is used, and how the output should be organized.

Without templates, AI naming becomes unpredictable. With templates, RenamerX stays structured.

What a template controls

A template includes:

• Template name
• Naming fields
• Organize mode
• Date format
• Separator
• Output language

Naming fields

The template editor currently exposes these fields:

• dcDate
• dcTitle
• dcSubject
• dcType
• dcCreator
• dcIdentifier
• extOrganization
• extProject
• extStatus
• extVersion

The order of these fields is the order of the final filename.

For example, a template with:

• dcDate
• dcSubject
• dcTitle
• dcType

and an underscore separator becomes a pattern like:

{dcDate}_{dcSubject}_{dcTitle}_{dcType}

Organize modes

Templates currently support these organize modes:

• flat
• subject_tree
• type_tree
• project_tree

Use flat when you only want clean filenames. Use one of the tree modes when you want naming logic to work alongside folder organization semantics.

Date formats

The template editor currently supports four date formats:

• YYYYMMDD
• YYYYMM
• YYYY-MM-DD
• YYYY-MM

Use the same date format across a template family unless you have a strong reason not to.

Separators

RenamerX currently supports two separators:

• underscore
• hyphen

Pick one and stay consistent. Mixed separator styles usually make a library harder to scan.

Output language

Templates currently support these output languages:

• English
• Chinese
• Japanese
• Spanish

Output language matters when the system needs to normalize semantic fields into naming output.

Built-in vs custom templates

RenamerX supports both built-in templates and user-created templates.

Use built-in templates to get started quickly. Use custom templates when you need a naming system that reflects your own projects, departments, or archive rules.

Best practices for template design

• Keep the number of fields as small as possible.
• Put the most stable field first.
• Use date only when the date is meaningful and extractable.
• Avoid combining fields that are often empty.
• Validate every new template in Batch Rename before using it in Watch Folders.

A good first template

For many document libraries, this is a sensible starting point:

dcDate + dcSubject + dcTitle + dcType

It is readable, sortable, and stable across many document workflows.

Real-world example

Imagine a consulting team cleaning up a folder of client deliverables.

The team wants filenames that stay readable even outside the original project folder, so they choose:

• dcDate
• extOrganization
• extProject
• dcTitle
• extStatus

With an underscore separator and YYYY-MM-DD, a result might look like:

2026-03-14_acme_migration_vendor-evaluation_final

That template works because each field answers a different question:

• When is it from?
• Which client is it for?
• Which project does it belong to?
• What is the file about?
• What stage is it in?

Related pages

• Controlled Vocabulary
• Naming Fields Dictionary
• Batch Rename