How to Find and Replace Words in Multiple Files

What do you do if you have to replace a single word in dozens, or even hundreds or thousands, of text files? You keep calm and download Notepad++ or Replace Text. These two utilities will do the job in seconds.


It’s a dilemma common among developers and programmers. Imagine you’re managing a project with hundreds or thousands of files. When a product name that appears on almost every page changes, you can hardly go through each page to manually search and change the name. No, you’re smarter than that.

You fire up Google, you find this article, and you learn about a solution that only takes seconds.

How to Edit Multiple Files in Bulk

You can either use Notepad++ or a dedicated tool called Replace Text to bulk-edit your files.

Notepad++

First, allow Notepad++ to find the word in all the files you need to edit. Open Notepad++ and go to Search > Find in Files… or press CTRL+SHIFT+F. This opes the Find in Files menu.

Under Find what:, enter the word or phrase that you need to change. Under Replace with:, enter the new word or phrase. Finally, set the Directory: where the affected files are located, so that Notepad++ knows where to search.

You can also use advanced settings, which I’ve outlined further down. When all is set, click Find All if you need to double-check the hits or Replace in Files if you want Notepad++ to immediately apply the changes. Depending on the number of files Notepad++ is searching, this can take a few seconds.

If you went with Find All, you’ll get a list of hits. Remove all the files you don’t want to edit by selecting them and pressing DEL, then right-click the remaining files and choose Open all.

Now go to Search > Replace or press CTRL+H, which will launch the Replace menu. Here you’ll find an option to Replace All in All Opened Documents.

Again, you can make several advanced settings, as explained below.

Advanced Search and Replace Settings in Notepad++

Under Find in Files, you can add Filters to search only in certain file types. For example, add *.doc to search only in DOC files. Likewise, you can search for files with a certain name, regardless of file type. Add *.* to search any file name and type.

When you choose a directory with sub-folders, check In all sub-folders and In hidden folders to search those, too. You might also want to check Match whole word only, so you don’t accidentally edit a partial match.

The Search Mode in both the Find in Files and Replace menus allows you to make advanced searches and replacements. Select Extended if you are using extensions, for example to replace a character with a new line (\n). Select Regular expression if you’re using operators to find and replace all matching words or phrases. You can stick with Normal if you’re just replacing text with text.

Replace Text

With Replace Text, you can set up a Replace Group to add multiple files and/or directories and multiple replacements.

To start, create a new group. Go to Replace > Add Group, and give your group a name.

Right-click your group and select Add File(s)… to add the files and/or folders you want to edit. In the Files / Folder Properties, select your Source Type, i.e., a single file or folder, then choose the Source File / Folder Path. If you choose to add a folder, you can also include and exclude file types by adding them to the Include File Filter or Exclude File Filter rows. Click OK when you’re done.

To add multiple files or folders, repeat the above step.

Replace Text’s best feature is that you can choose a destination that’s different from the original location. In the File / Folder Properties, switch to the Destination tab and choose your desired Destination File / Folder Path.

Now that you’ve set up your group, it’s time to define your replacements. Select your group and go to Replace > Search/Replace Grid > Advanced Edit… Now you can add the Search Text and Replace Text. Be sure to look in the drop-down menu at the bottom to customize the search and replace options.

Like with Notepad++, you can use advanced search strings and operators. Unlike Notepad++, you can add as many search and replace instances as you like and Replace Text will run through all of them when you run the process.

To make the replacements, go to Replace > Start Replacing or press CTRL+R.

Source: Makeuseof