Although many things can be done in the simplest ways, it interests and even benefits us to discover and learn some new approaches. We all know how to rename a file or folder under Windows. All we need to do is to right-click on the file/folder and select Rename. Actually, there are some other methods to do that. This post shows you three ways to rename a file in Windows 10.

• Way 1: in File Explorer
• Way 2: with Command Prompt
• Way 3: with Windows PowerShell

Way 1: Rename a file in Windows 10 File Explorer

It is the most common and straightforward way to rename a file or folder in File Explorer. You can do that with any of the three means as shown below.

• Click the file you want to rename to select it, click it again to make its name editable, then type a new name and press the Enter key to confirm that. The interval between the two clicks should be more than one second, just in case that you double-click the file to open it instead of selecting it.
• Click the file you want to rename to select it and press the F2 key on your keyboard to make its name editable. Then type a new name and press Enter.
• Right-click on the file, select Rename from the context menu and then type a new name and press Enter.

Way 2: Rename a file using Command Prompt in Windows 10

You may not use this way often, but you can get to know how it works.

Step 1: Open the folder that contains the file you want to rename.

Step 2: Click the file to select it. Click the File tab, point to the Open Command Prompt option from the menu, and then click Open Command Prompt.

Step 3: After the Command Prompt window opens, type in ren "current_filename.ext" "new_filename.ext" and press the Enter key. The .ext is the file name extension.

Way 3: Rename a file with Windows PowerShell

Step 1: Open the folder that contains the file you want to rename.

Step 2: Select the file you want to rename, click the File tab, point to the Open Windows PowerShell option, and then click Open Windows PowerShell.

Step 3: After the Windows PowerShell window opens, type rename-item "current_filename.ext" "new_filename.ext", and press Enter.