How best to rename many text files with 1st line of text?

[peternlewis]

I would create a macro that operates on the selected files in the Finder. See:

Working with the Finder Selection

In Keyboard Maestro, you work with the Finder Selection by using the For Each action to iterate over the selected files. From there, you can do whatever you would like with the files using the various file actions, or by processing with a script or other means. There is a smart action in the acton selector for For Each Path in the Finder Selection, which is simply a For Each action, preset to iterate through the Finder Selection collection. You can put whatever actions you like within that ac…

Use the Read a File action to read the file

Use the Search using Regular Expression action to get the first line.

Or you can use the For Each action and the Lines In collection to read the lines from the file, and break out of the loop immediately.

Then use the Rename a File action to rename the file.

For safety sake, you might want to ensure that the initial file extension is “txt” (hopefully the files already have a .txt extension).

You also might want to limit the length and/or characters of the line before renaming.

And for heavens sake, make sure you have full and complete backups of your entire Mac and this folder specifically before testing the macro.