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Find and replace across many files, safely
Renaming a project, updating a web address, fixing a repeated typo: sooner or later you need to change the same text in more than one file. Doing it by hand invites mistakes. Doing it with a careless bulk replace can be worse. This guide shows a careful routine.
Three levels of replace in BookmarkFiles
- Find (Ctrl+F) highlights matches in the open file and lets you jump from one to the next.
- Replace (Ctrl+H) opens a bar with two boxes: the word to replace and the new word. It changes only the files you have selected. With one file selected, the change is applied right away and Ctrl+Z can undo it.
- Replace All changes every file in the list that is open, no matter what is selected. A confirmation window lists how many matches each file contains before anything changes.
Options that matter
Aa makes the search case sensitive. Word matches whole words only, so searching for cat does not touch category. Whole-word matching also works for Korean and other languages. Text you type is matched literally. Special characters have no special meaning.
A safe routine
- Back up first. Copy the files, or make sure you have a version history. See our backup guide.
- Search before replacing. Use Find to see what the word looks like in context. Matches you did not expect are a sign you need Word or Aa.
- Narrow the scope. Select only the files you mean to change and use Replace rather than Replace All.
- Read the counts. The bar shows the number of matches in the selected files and in all open files. The confirmation lists each file. If a number surprises you, stop and check.
- Review before saving. Replaced text stays unsaved, marked by red dots, until you press Save. Open one or two files and look at the result.
- Save, then spot-check. After saving, open a file again and confirm the change.
Things to remember
- Files that have not been opened since you restarted the browser are skipped, because the browser has not given the page access yet. Click such a file once and it becomes part of the replace.
- Undo with Ctrl+Z works for a replace inside a single file. A replace across several files cannot be undone in one step. Close the files without saving to discard the changes.
- Files shown as “File missing” are not part of any replace.
Related guides
- How BookmarkFiles opens and saves your files
- Organize the text files you use every day
- Why text files look garbled: UTF-8, EUC-KR and other encodings
Ready to try it? Open BookmarkFiles in Chrome or Edge on a desktop computer.