Renamed Media Files

[eventide]

Over the years, I've renamed files in Finder. Reunion still locates and opens them without errors, but the old filenames remain in the Media section and source records. GEDCOM exports also retain the old filename in the TITL field, and the new one in the FILE field.

Is there a way to update the displayed filenames and TITL fields in bulk without breaking existing media links? I done this consistently over the course of many years, and I am hoping I didn't make a mess of things.

Screenshot 2026-10-15 at 6.08.03 PM.pngScreenshot 2026-10-15 at 6.07.31 PM.png

[David Walton]

I have had a similar problem but my fix assumes familiarity with ged files and text editors:

As a starter do a Repair media Links... and if required Rebuild Thumbnails... Also include Rebuild Cache Files... so that you have a clean starting point.
Make a backup.
Export to ged.
Use an editor such as BBEdit, something that handles regular expressions.
Open your exported ged and build a suitable search pattern.
You will need several search patterns, test search/replace and then action before moving to the next search pattern.
Import back to Reunion.

If you are not comfortable with the above it looks like living with the old data fields or a lot of hands-on editing.

Dave

[eventide]

Thank you. I can give it a try, but I guess my biggest problem is that I wouldn't know where to start with a search pattern. I don't know which images or how many of them are affected.

[David Walton]

Not able to access the forum for the last couple of days!
What about Find > Advanced Find > Media File Name > Contains
to enumerate the poblem images then see what can be done with Find and Replace

Using ged export and BBEdit
Say your pathname was /Users/your_username/Pictures/Media/your_filename.jpg
then pattern .+your_filename would find all occurrences of the file name
for a replacement
Matching: Case Sensitive + Grep + Show matches
search (.+)your_filename
replace with \1your_new_filename
A powerful tool that requires background reading along with some trial and error before you take the plunge.

To give you some idea of what you will see, a simple text edit, 3 People in the family and used on Source, Event & Media



BBEdit RM14 ged file.png

[eventide]

Thanks for your help. I will give it a try.