File Parts
The file parts are used to configure what text is generated for each file.
To view and edit the file parts, you need to select and edit a copy attributes command.
To add a file part, drag one from the row of available part types (labelled "Drag to add:") into the command's part layout. Available part type buttons show a "+" prefix and use dashed borders to distinguish them from parts already in the command.
Alternatively, you can click one of the part types to add a new part of that type to the end of the list.
Once you have added a part, you can click on it to select it and see the options for that part. These can be used to configure the exact text you want.
To re-order the parts you can also drag and drop them.
To delete a part, either drag it out of the view, or press the Delete button to the right of the options when it is selected.
The following describes each of the file part types available.
Text
The text part adds arbitrary text to the text generated.
In this example, two text parts have been used to add quotes around a filename.
Name
The name part adds the filename to the text generated.
You can select whether you want the name and extension, or just the name or just the extension.
You can also select if you want to change the case of the name text, for example to make it upper or lower case.
Path
The path part adds the path to the file to the text generated.
The Type drop-down menu let's you select whether you want the whole path, or just part of it. The Link Target type only generates any text if the item selected is a link or junction point, in which case it copies the target path of that link.
You can select what text to use as the separator between folders. Windows normally uses \, but you could change this to / or any other text you like.
If you check Limit Number of Parent Folders, then only the number of parent folders in the Maximum Number of Parent Folders box will be included in the path.
You can also select if you want to change the case of the path text, for example to make it upper or lower case.
File Size
The file size part adds the size of the file to the generated text.
You can select whether the size is in shown in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes or auto.
The auto option automatically picks which of those options to use. It will show bytes if the size is less than 1,024 bytes, or kilobytes if the size is less than 1,024 KB, or megabytes if the size is less than 1,024 MB and so on. If you select auto, then "B", "K", "M", "G" or "T" will be appended so you can tell which was selected.
If you check Add Thousands Separator, then the size will be formatted with a thousands separator. The separator used will depend on the current locale.
Date
The date part adds the date of the file to the generated text.
You can select whether the date used is the file's last-modified date, the date the file was created, or the date the file was last accessed. However, please note that by default Windows does not update the last-accessed time for performance reasons, so if you use that value you may not get what you expect.
The other drop-down lets you select how the date is formatted. To allow full flexibility, there are also options for each of the individual year, month, day, hour, minutes and seconds, so by using several date parts you can configure the date to be shown exactly how you want.
File Property
The file property part adds a selected file property to the generated text.
This gives you access to all the various properties that Windows makes available for files. This various depending on the file type. For example, MP3 files typically have properties for the artist, album, song title etc.
Note that the example values shown in this dialog are taken from the first selected file when you originally opened the Configure dialog. If a command using the file property part is used with files that are of a different type and do not have the property selected, then empty text will be used for that part.
If you check the Customize String Format checkbox, then you will see controls that let you set exactly how the property value is shown. This works for all property types, including date-valued properties such as Date Taken or Date Encoded, which lets you format those dates in the same flexible way as the Date part.
Auto Number
The auto number part adds an incrementing number to the generated text.
This lets you add an index number to each file. You can configure what value the auto number starts at, and how much it increases each time.
You can also select whether the number should have leading zeros, and if so how many digits the number should have.
Finally, you can also select whether to format the number with a thousands separator.
Checksum
The checksum part computes a hash/checksum of the file contents and includes it in the output.
You can select from the following algorithms:
| Algorithm | Output Length | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| MD5 | 32 hex characters | |
| SHA-1 | 40 hex characters | |
| SHA-256 | 64 hex characters | |
| SHA-512 | 128 hex characters | |
| CRC32 | 8 hex characters | Defaults to uppercase |
| xxHash64 | 16 hex characters | Very fast, non-cryptographic |
The Uppercase checkbox toggles between uppercase (e.g. A1B2C3D4) and lowercase (e.g. a1b2c3d4) hex output. CRC32 defaults to uppercase; all others default to lowercase. The uppercase preference is remembered per algorithm.
Checksums are computed in background threads so the UI remains responsive, and results are cached per file. Folders are skipped — no checksum is computed for folder items.
Clipboard checksum compare
When you run a command whose output is just a checksum part, and it is applied to a single file, CopyFilenames checks whether the clipboard already contains a hash before the copy happens. If it does, a dialog is shown that reports whether the newly computed hash matches the one already on the clipboard.
This makes it easy to verify a downloaded file against a published hash: copy the published hash to the clipboard first, then right-click the file and run the checksum command — the match/mismatch result is shown immediately.