# Replace Characters in Rename
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [January 22, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644 "2005-01-22T15:59:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tberman333](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/tberman333)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/1 "2005-01-22T15:59:45Z")
I was thinking it would be helpful to set your own "standards" for how to replace invalid characters when renaming files from the tag.
For example, I have a lot of live shows on CD and when two songs flow into each-other I put a '\>' after the title to show that it flows to the next song...
Then, everythime I rename it aways stops on every song with a '\>' and askes me if it can use a space instead... I actaully would rather it use another character, such as ']'. Also when there is a '?' I would like to just remove it rather than replacing it with a space. It would be great if I can set something in mp3tag that says always replace '\>' with ']' or '?' with [no space] or something similar.
Just my thought...
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### Author:  [@dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dano)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/2 "2005-01-22T16:10:12Z")
You can use the scripting functions in "Tag-\>File name".
For example:
%artist%-$replace(%title%,\<,'[')
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### Author:  [@tberman333](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/tberman333)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/3 "2005-01-22T22:39:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> You can use the scripting functions in "Tag-\>File name".
> For example:
> %artist%-$replace(%title%,\<,'[')
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Very cool... I will try that out! Thanks for the quick reply!
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### Author:  [@beaker](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/beaker)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2005, 12:06am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/4 "2005-01-23T00:06:54Z")
I have an action called "Special Characters" that replaces all those characters that can't be used in a filename.
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### Author:  [@tberman333](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/tberman333)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2005, 12:40am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/5 "2005-01-23T00:40:18Z")
The problem with using an action is that I want to keep the special characters in the title and just replace them with something relevent in the file name...
As far as using the $replace funtion that Dano mentioned, does anyone know how I could replace all special character in one line rather than just one at a time..
What I mean is, I would like to have the files named as artist - title with a replace that changes "\>" to "]" and "/" to "-" and "?" to "", etc.
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Sebastian_Mares)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2005, 7:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/6 "2005-01-23T07:55:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The problem with using an action is that I want to keep the special characters in the title and just replace them with something relevent in the file name...
>
> As far as using the $replace funtion that Dano mentioned, does anyone know how I could replace all special character in one line rather than just one at a time..
>
> What I mean is, I would like to have the files named as artist - title with a replace that changes "\>" to "]" and "/" to "-" and "?" to "", etc.
>
> Thanks.
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
The only way I can think of right now would be creating an action set which copies the artist and the title into a new ID3v2 field, then replaces all invalid characters, generates a file name based on that field and finally deletes the field.
The Format values action type will help here. 🙂
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### Author:  [@dano](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/dano)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2005, 8:32am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/7 "2005-01-23T08:32:23Z")
Actions can also be used for renaming.
Just select _FILENAME as field on "format value" action.
For multiple replaces in one line:
$replace($replace($replace(%title%,/,_),?,_),:,_)
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### Author:  [@Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Sebastian_Mares)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2005, 5:35pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/8 "2005-01-23T17:35:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Actions can also be used for renaming.
> Just select _FILENAME as field on "format value" action.
> For multiple replaces in one line:
> $replace($replace($replace(%title%,/,_),?,_),:,_)
>
> \<{POST\_SNAPBACK}\>
Ah, totally forgot that you can use nested $replace. \>\_\<
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### Author:  [@tberman333](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/tberman333)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/replace-characters-in-rename/1644/9 "2005-01-24T02:53:34Z")
Perfect... thanks for all the help!