# renaming folders
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 2, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856 "2006-02-02T10:19:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@justified](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/justified)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856/1 "2006-02-02T10:19:55Z")
Hello!
Please can anybody explain me how to do this:
Rename folder with some particular album mp3s to "year - album" (or whatever) format. Is there any easy way?
Thank you.
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### Author:  [@justified](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/justified)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2006, 11:20am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856/2 "2006-02-02T11:20:03Z")
well. i found it's possible to rename folder by making a new action that replaces \_DIRECTORY with explicitely stated folder name (eg The lost sounds of mu) to explicitely stated new name. but even if i put "%year% %album%" (without quotes) to "replace with" it gets renamed to exactly "%year% %album%".
So, probably I need to things:
1. How to find in "original" everything after last slash
2. To replace it by actual year and album title, not to %year% %album%".
Sorry for maybe lame questions, I have just installed mp3tag, spent about an hour in this forum and help, and could not find anything.
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### Author:  [@dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dano)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2006, 12:04pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856/3 "2006-02-02T12:04:24Z")
The action type must be Format value to use placeholders.
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### Author:  [@justified](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/justified)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856/4 "2006-02-02T12:59:02Z")
Ydope have just replied to me in another topic.
Just in case somebody come to this topic by Search:
> [@](#):
>
> Make an action that formats \_DIRECTORY in this way %artist% - %album%
> Use %validate to make sure every character not allowed in a windows path is replaced with a legal character.
>
> In my case I format \_FILENAME in this way %artist% - %album\_%filename%, but that's because I did this before the \_DIRECTORY 'tag' was invented by Florian. The result is the same.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:19pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/renaming-folders/2856/5 "2026-02-09T12:19:37Z")