Restoring Folder Names after Accidental Bulk Rename in WSL2

Restoring Folder Names After Accidental Bulk Rename in WSL2

If you've accidentally run a bulk rename command in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) and renamed files or folders at the Windows 11 folder level, you might be wondering how to restore the original names. This article will guide you through the process of restoring folder names after an accidental bulk rename in WSL2.

Understanding the Problem

When you run a bulk rename command in WSL2, it affects the files and folders in the current directory and all its subdirectories. For example, if you run the command rename *.jpg *.jpeg, it will rename all .jpg files to .jpeg in the current directory and its subdirectories.

However, if you run a bulk rename command that affects folder names, it can cause problems in Windows 11, especially if the folders contain important files or programs. In this situation, you'll want to restore the original folder names as soon as possible.

Restoring Folder Names

To restore the original folder names after an accidental bulk rename in WSL2, you can follow these steps:

1. Open a command prompt in Windows 11 and navigate to the affected directory.
2. Run the command dir /x to display the short names of the files and folders in the directory. The short names are the eight-character names followed by a tilde (~) and a number, if necessary, to make the name unique.

   C:\Users\username\Documents>dir /x
    Volume in drive C is Windows
    Volume Serial Number is XXXX-XXXX
   
    Directory of C:\Users\username\Documents
   
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~1
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~2
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~3
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~4
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~5
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~6
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~7
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~8
   04/01/2022  09:30 AM                           Documents~9
                  0 File(s)              0 bytes
                 10 Dir(s)  23,456,388,096 bytes free

   In this example, the short names of the Documents folder are Documents, Documents~1, Documents~2, and so on.

3. Identify the original folder name by looking at the short names. In this example, the original folder name is Documents.
4. Rename the folder to its original name using the ren command. In this example, you would run the command ren Documents~1 Documents to rename the first renamed folder to its original name.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each renamed folder.