GoPro Filenames

2025-04-15 | Photography, Python

I have a GoPro Hero4 Session. This little camera was amazing when it came out. I still think it’s still pretty amazing today. (Aside from one annoyance: I can’t get Quik to connect to it from my Android phone because it insists that there’s a PIN set on it.) It does what I want it to do. Takes half decent action videos in 1080p at 50Hz and wide-angled quite average stills. In good light the photos are pretty usable as happy snaps. It’s waterproof without needing a case. And it comes with all manner of mounts. It’s currently being used on the front of my bike to capture any excitement that might happen as I ride around the place.

But where it falls over completely is file naming convention. Videos start off with a perfectly fine “GOPR6014.mp4” format. The 6,014th photo or video shot on the camera. Perfect. But then, when that video gets to the filesize limit, it creates a second file with the name GP016014.mp4. And the next file it creates is GP026014.mp4.

This means that when you sort the files by name, you get a list of all of the second files for the videos, then third files for the videos, then fourth, etc., until you get to a list of all the base files.

It’s horrible and makes a mess of any storyboarding file editing software you can imagine. (Unless there are ones out there that will accept this horrid GoPro standard that I’ve not yet found).

Anyway – Python and regex to the rescue.

import os
import re

# Get all files in the current directory and skip directories
for filename in os.listdir('.'):
    if not os.path.isfile(filename):
        continue

    name, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)

    # Rename GOPR files: GOPR6014.mp4 → 6014-00.mp4
    if name.startswith("GOPR"):
        new_name = name[4:] + "-00" + ext
        os.rename(filename, new_name)
        print(f"Renamed {filename} → {new_name}")

    # Rename GP files: GP016015.mp4 → 6015-01.mp4
    elif name.startswith("GP"):
        match = re.match(r"GP(\d{2})(\d+)", name)
        if match:
            suffix = match.group(1)
            main_number = match.group(2)
            new_name = f"{main_number}-{suffix}{ext}"
            os.rename(filename, new_name)
            print(f"Renamed {filename} → {new_name}")

This takes all the files in the directory that you launch the script from and renames them into a more sensible structure.

GOPR6014.mp4 becomes 6014-00.mp4.
GP016014.mp4 becomes 6014-01.mp4.
GP026014.mp4 becomes 6014-02.mp4.
and so on.

This now sorts properly, and makes life much easier.

Enjoy.

Test this before you use it on something important.

.

.