REAPER Audio Workflows

How to batch rename items, regions and markers in REAPER

By StudioRescue Editorial

Published October 25, 2026

Renaming one thing in REAPER is easy. Renaming forty takes, every region in a song, or all the chapter markers in a podcast episode one at a time is the part that eats an evening. It also matters more than it looks, because names travel: region names can become your rendered file names, and REAPER has commands that act on every item with a matching name.

This guide covers what works without installing anything, the CSV round trip that does the heavy lifting for regions and markers, and where a script is the honest answer. Menu paths are from the official REAPER User Guide v7.81, checked against the current release, REAPER 7.83.

First, know what you are renaming

Most confusion comes from three different names that look like one:

• The take name. This is the name shown on the item in the arrange view. The user guide says it starts out as the file name, but you can change it. Changing it does not touch the file on disk.
• The source file name. The actual WAV or other file in your project folder. Media Item Properties has a separate option to rename the source file, and that is a different job.
• Region and marker names. Labels on the timeline, managed in the Region/Marker Manager, not attached to any file at all.

Track names are a fourth, covered at the end. Everything below renames labels inside the project unless it says otherwise.

Give many items the same name

This is built in, and the user guide gives it as a tip: you can assign one name to several media items in one go.

Matching names are more useful than they look. REAPER's Item processing › Propagate item to similarly named items commands copy one item's edits, such as FX, a volume change or a fade, to every other item with the same name, either on the same track or across the project. Naming all your snare one-shots or all your repeated jingles the same thing first is what makes that work.

What this method cannot do is number them. Every item gets exactly the same text.

Rename many regions or markers at once: the CSV round trip

Open the Region/Marker Manager from View › Region/Marker Manager. You can rename any row by double-clicking its name, and in recent versions pressing Enter on a selected row starts editing its name, which is quick for ten rows. For fifty, use the manager's export and import instead. REAPER has supported CSV import and export here since version 4.25, and recent updates have made it more reliable.

This is where a spreadsheet earns its place. In most spreadsheets, typing Verse 1 in one cell and dragging the fill handle down the column gives you Verse 1, Verse 2, Verse 3 in seconds, which is exactly the numbered renaming REAPER's own dialogs do not offer.

Why region names are worth getting right

REAPER's render dialog can build file names from wildcards. The user guide's own example for the region render matrix is a file name of $project\$region-$track, which puts the project name, region name and track name into each output file and gives each region its own subfolder. If your regions are called Region 1 to Region 14, your rendered files will be too. Rename the regions once and every render after that is labelled properly. The rest of the render setup is in how to export audio from REAPER.

Numbered or patterned item names: use a script

If you need items named Take 01, Take 02 and so on, or want to add a prefix to forty existing names, the REAPER 7.83 user guide and changelog do not describe a built-in way to do it in one step. Community scripts fill the gap. There are several; one example is Smart Renamer by ekscripts, listed free on its Gumroad page and described as batch renaming with simple rules. We have not tested it, and it is not made or supported by Cockos.

To use a script you have downloaded, the user guide's route is: open the Actions list, click New action, choose Load ReaScript, then select the script file. REAPER's ReaPack extension is the other common way to install scripts, and the user guide introduces it in the same chapter. Whatever you install, save the project before the first run, and run it on a copy of a project before trusting it on a real one.

Renaming the files on disk is a different job

If what you actually need is tidy WAV file names, for example before sending files to someone, there are two better routes than renaming takes:

• Render new files with the names you want. This leaves your project untouched. If you are handing tracks to someone else, how to prepare vocals for a mixing engineer walks through it.
• Rename the source file from Media Item Properties. REAPER lists this as its own option. Be careful with files shared between projects: if another project points at that file, that project may not find it any more. If that happens, how to fix media offline in REAPER covers relinking.

Track names, and naming before you record

Tracks rename the usual way: double-click the name area, type, press Enter. For many tracks, the Track Manager (View › Track Manager) lists them all, and in recent versions Enter starts editing the selected row's name.

The real time saver is doing it first. The user guide advises naming tracks before you record, because the recorded file is then given a name that matches the track. Under Options › Preferences › Recording you can add wildcards such as track number and the date and time to those file names. Name tracks before the session and most of the renaming in this article never needs doing.

What this will not do

• Renaming a take will not rename the file on disk, and it will not change what was recorded.
• The CSV round trip will not bring back take markers, and a merge import will not replace your old names.
• Stock REAPER will not number item names for you in one step, as far as its own documentation shows.
• Good names will not organise a project by themselves. They make rendering, searching and propagating easier, which is where the time goes.