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Give meaningful names to recovered files (normally only got placeholder names), based on their embedded metadata and/or contents extracted using OCR

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MIT license
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nameback

Rename files based on their metadata. Automatically extracts titles, dates, and descriptions from your files to give them meaningful names.

Available Tools:

  • 🖥️ CLI - Command-line tool for automation and scripting (Windows, macOS, Linux)
  • 🎨 GUI - Visual dual-pane interface (Midnight Commander style) for all platforms

What it does

Transforms meaningless filenames into descriptive ones using embedded metadata:

IMG_2847.jpg           → 2024-03-15_sunset.jpg
document.pdf           → Annual_Report_2024.pdf
screenshot_20241015.png → 輸入_姓名.png (Chinese OCR)
VID_20241015.mp4       → Product_Demo_Video.mp4 (frame OCR)
IMG_3847.heic          → Family_Reunion_2024.heic

Installation

macOS

brew tap h4x0r/nameback
brew install nameback

Automatically installs all dependencies (exiftool, tesseract, ffmpeg, imagemagick).

Windows

Download and install nameback-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.msi from releases

What you get:

  • CLI: Type nameback in any terminal (automatically added to PATH)
  • GUI: Launch from Start Menu → nameback
  • Auto-install dependencies: exiftool, tesseract, ffmpeg, imagemagick installed automatically

No manual setup required - everything works out of the box!

Silent installation: msiexec /i nameback-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.msi /quiet

Note: Versions v0.7.17 and earlier triggered Windows Defender false positives due to console hiding code. This was fixed in v0.7.18+ by removing the problematic Windows API calls. Always use the latest version for the best experience.

Linux

CLI Tool (Command-line)

cargo install nameback
nameback --install-deps  # Interactive dependency installation

GUI Application (Visual Interface)

cargo install nameback --bin nameback-gui
nameback-gui

Debian/Ubuntu/Kali (.deb Package)

# Download from releases
wget https://github.com/h4x0r/nameback/releases/latest/download/nameback_0.4.1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i nameback_0.4.1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install -f  # Install dependencies

The .deb package includes both CLI and GUI tools.

See all installation options

Security & Verification

All release artifacts are signed with SLSA build provenance attestations for supply chain security. You can verify that your downloaded files are authentic and haven't been tampered with.

Verify Downloaded Files

Prerequisites: Install GitHub CLI

Verify any artifact:

# Verify MSI installer (Windows)
gh attestation verify nameback-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.msi --owner h4x0r

# Verify DMG installer (macOS)
gh attestation verify nameback-x86_64-apple-darwin.dmg --owner h4x0r

# Verify .deb package (Linux)
gh attestation verify nameback_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb --owner h4x0r

What this verifies:

  • ✅ Built by the official h4x0r/nameback repository
  • ✅ Built from the official release workflow
  • ✅ Not tampered with since build
  • ✅ Shows the exact commit SHA that built it

Additional verification with checksums:

Download checksums.txt from the release page, then:

# macOS
shasum -a 256 -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

# Linux
sha256sum -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

# Windows (PowerShell)
Get-Content checksums.txt | Select-String "nameback.*windows" | ForEach-Object {
  $hash, $file = $_ -split '  '
  if ((Get-FileHash $file -Algorithm SHA256).Hash -eq $hash.ToUpper()) {
    "✓ $file verified"
  } else {
    "✗ $file FAILED"
  }
}

The --ignore-missing flag lets you verify just the file you downloaded without errors for other platforms.

For maximum security, use both attestation verification (proves authenticity) and checksum verification (proves integrity).

Quick Start

CLI (Command-line)

# Preview what will change (safe, no modifications)
nameback ~/Pictures --dry-run

# Rename the files
nameback ~/Pictures

GUI (All Platforms)

Windows: Start Menu → nameback macOS (Homebrew): Run nameback-gui in terminal Linux (cargo install): Run nameback-gui in terminal Linux (.deb package): Launch from Applications menu or run nameback-gui

  1. Click "📁 Select Directory" to choose a folder
  2. Review proposed renames in the right pane (original names on left)
  3. Check/uncheck files to rename
  4. Click "✅ Rename X Files" to apply changes

Features:

  • 📂 Visual dual-pane interface (Midnight Commander style)
  • ✅ Checkbox selection for individual files
  • 🔄 Real-time preview before renaming
  • ✔️ Color-coded status (pending, success, error)

Common Examples

# Organize recovered files from data recovery
nameback /tmp/photorec --dry-run

# Process screenshots folder with OCR
nameback ~/Desktop/Screenshots --verbose

# Clean up iPhone photo exports (HEIC support)
nameback ~/Desktop/iPhone_Export

# Organize downloaded documents
nameback ~/Downloads --dry-run

Features

  • Intelligent Naming Heuristics - Quality scoring system to choose the best name from multiple sources
  • Smart Photo Renaming - Uses EXIF data (date, description, GPS location) from JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF
  • PDF Intelligence - Extracts titles from metadata or document content, with OCR for scanned PDFs
  • Enhanced Text Extraction - Markdown frontmatter, CSV semantic columns, nested JSON/YAML fields
  • Context-Aware Naming - Leverages directory structure and filename analysis for better names
  • Multi-Frame Video Analysis - Extracts multiple frames (1s, 5s, 10s) and picks the best OCR result (default behavior)
  • Series Detection - Automatically detects and maintains file series numbering (e.g., vacation_001.jpg, vacation_002.jpg)
  • Format-Specific Handlers - Email files (.eml), web archives (.html), archives (.zip, .tar), source code docstrings
  • Location & Timestamp Enrichment - Optional GPS coordinates and formatted timestamps in filenames
  • Multi-Language OCR - Supports Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English (and 160+ more languages)
  • Advanced Filtering - Automatically rejects low-quality names (errors, device names, generic placeholders)
  • HEIC Support - Native support for Apple's High Efficiency Image Format
  • Safe & Secure - Preview mode, no overwrites, blocks root execution, same-directory only

Options

nameback <directory>                        # Rename files (includes GPS location & timestamps by default)
nameback <directory> --dry-run              # Preview changes only
nameback <directory> --verbose              # Show detailed progress
nameback <directory> --skip-hidden          # Skip hidden files
nameback <directory> --no-location          # Exclude GPS location from filenames
nameback <directory> --no-timestamp         # Exclude timestamps from filenames
nameback <directory> --no-geocode           # Use raw GPS coordinates instead of city names
nameback <directory> --fast-video           # Use single-frame video analysis (faster, less accurate)
nameback --check-deps                       # Check dependencies
nameback --install-deps                     # Install dependencies

Default behavior: By default, nameback includes GPS location (reverse geocoded to city names like "Seattle_WA") and timestamps in filenames when available. Use --no-location, --no-timestamp, or --no-geocode to disable these features.

Learn More

Security

Nameback is developed with security best practices. For automated security controls in your GitHub repositories, check out 1-click-github-sec by the same author (Albert Hui) - automated Dependabot, CodeQL, secret scanning, and more.

Third-Party Dependencies

Nameback uses the following open-source dependencies:

Required

Optional

All license texts are available in the LICENSES directory. For detailed attribution information, see third_party/README.md.

Installation Fallback Mechanism

Nameback uses a 4-layer fallback system to ensure dependencies install successfully even in restrictive network environments:

  1. Primary package manager (Scoop/Chocolatey/Homebrew/apt)
  2. DNS fallback - Retry with public DNS servers (8.8.8.8, 1.1.1.1)
  3. Alternative package manager - MacPorts, dnf, yum, pacman, snap
  4. Bundled installers - Downloaded from GitHub Releases (NEW!)

This ensures ~99% installation success rate across corporate firewalls, VPNs, and regional restrictions.

Documentation

📚 Full Documentation →

For Maintainers

See RELEASING.md for the release process using cargo-release.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Created by Albert Hui (@4n6h4x0r)

Built with Claude Code

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Give meaningful names to recovered files (normally only got placeholder names), based on their embedded metadata and/or contents extracted using OCR

Topics

ransomware undelete

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MIT license
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Release v0.8.0 Latest
Nov 6, 2025
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