Optimizing Lightroom File Naming

12. Juni 2026
Kategorien
#Lightroom #Terminal #Shell-Commands

By default, Adobe Lightroom names virtual copies as "Copy 1," "Copy 2," etc., and labels HDR merges or panoramas with "PANO" or "HDR" (in uppercase). I’ve always found this frustrating, as it leads to inelegant filenames during export.

Unfortunately, Lightroom Classic doesn’t provide a built-in way to change these defaults. However, you can modify the translation file to customize these names.

To automate this process, I created the following shell commands:

# Copy name: "Kopie 1" → "v1"
sudo sed -E -i .backup \
  "s:\"(.*AgLibraryImages.*DefaultCopyName).*:\"\1=v^1\":g" \
  "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/TranslatedStrings.txt"

# Photo enhancement: "Verbessert" → "opt"
sudo sed -E -i .backup \
  "s:\"(.*BaseNameEnhanceExtension.*PhotoEnhance).*:\"\1=opt\":g" \
  "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/TranslatedStrings.txt"

# Photo Merge: "HDR" → "hdr"
sudo sed -E -i .backup \
  "s:\"(.*PhotoMergeDialog.*BasnameMergeExtension.*HDR=)(.*):\"\1hdr\":g" \
  "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/TranslatedStrings.txt"

# Photo Merge: "Pano" → "pano"
sudo sed -E -i .backup \
  "s:\"(.*PhotoMergeDialog.*BasnameMergeExtension.*Panorama=)(.*):\"\1pano\":g" \
  "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/TranslatedStrings.txt"

# Photo Merge: "HDR-Pano" → "hdr-pano"
sudo sed -E -i .backup \
  "s:\"(.*PhotoMergeDialog.*BasnameMergeExtension.*HDRPanorama=)(.*):\"\1hdr-pano\":g" \
  "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/TranslatedStrings.txt"

 

Since running shell commands you don’t understand is generally a bad idea, here’s a quick breakdown:

sudo

Executes the following commands as a superuser (sudo = superuser do). This is necessary for editing files under /Applications.

sed -E -i .backup

sed is the stream editor that modifies the file. The -E flag enables extended regex, and -i .backup edits the file in-place while creating a backup with the .backup suffix.

"s:\"(.*AgLibraryImages.*DefaultCopyName).*:\"\1=v^1\":g"

This is a regular expression that searches for the string DefaultCopyName and replaces its value with v^1.

"/Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic/Adobe Lightroom Classic.app/Contents/Resources/de.lproj/TranslatedStrings_Lr_de_DE.txt"

The file path of the translation file.

Notes:

  • Non-German users should adjust the search terms and file path to match their language’s translation file.
  • Unfortunately, every Lightroom update overwrites these customizations. But thanks to this script, reapplying the changes takes just seconds.