Hi Robert, That's an easy one and you don't even need any software since this functionality is built into Windows. Ari was closest whenb he said there was a way to do this using the Run command. This actually goes back to the old DOS days and using the command line interface which you can still do in Windows by typing Windows Key+R to bring up the Run command, then type "Cmd" for "command" and press enter. I am surprised nobody who like me has been a long-time computer user and who started with DOS has remembered this.
OK, after you press enter after typing CMD you now get a DOS prompt window. This is just another Window and you can still use Alt+Tab to switch to other Windows or programs you currently have open. If you use Jaws and do a Say Line you most likely hear something like this: C:\users\user name> where user name would be your name. Anyhow, the main thing here is that first you want to use the DOS command for "change directory" and go to the directory where your ringtones are located. I am using the DOS terminology here where a Folder was called a Directory. The command is "cd" of course without the quotation marks, it stands for change directory. The syntax is cd which you can follow with a space or not, then type the complete path of your folder. For example, if your Windows user name is Robert and you have iTunes installed in the music folder and your folder where your ringtones are is called "Tones", then the line would look like this: Cd \users\robert\music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Tones If you start at the root level, i.e. c:, you don't have to start with c:, you can start simply with \ Type the path and press enter and the prompt will now say this: C:\users\robert\music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Tones> OK, now you can check your folder for the files that are in it, just a double check sort of thing. Type "dir" which stands for "directory" followed by a space, then type a "*" (asterisk) followed by a "." (period) and the extension "m4a" which you say is the current extension of your 8,000 files. There are no spaces except for the space between the "dir" and the "*". The "*" is a wild card for any file name in front of the period. it would look like this: Dir *.m4a - this will give you a listing of all file names with the extension of M4A. Wait a moment as all the files are now being listed. Do a say line after maybe 3 or 4 seconds, if you are back at the c prompt, you can route the Jaws cursor to the PC cursor and then arrow up. You will hear this: 0 Dir(s) 62,432,980,992 bytes free 19 File(s) 6,316,528 bytes The above is what I get when I do a directory listing of my Tones folder. It first tells me that there are 0 Dir(s) which means there are no subfolders, this is followed by the free space of my C drive. Then if I uparrow another line I hear that I have 19 files and it tells me the total size of all of them. If I uparrow again I will be on the last file of the entire file listing. In your case you should have 8,000 or whatever exact number of files. OK, now you have to just type one more line to rename all the M4A extensions to M4R. The command is "ren" which as you probably guessed stands for "rename", you follow this by a space. You once again use the "*" (asterisk) as a wild card to include all files with the M4A extension, your command line is this: Ren *.M4A *.M4R Make sure you have only 2 spaces in this, one between the command "ren" and what you want to rename which is all the files with extension M4A and which you indicate by "*.M4A" and the second space between the *.M4A and the *.M4R which is the extension you want to rename all the files to. Of course you press enter after you type the line to execute the command. That's it, all your files will now have whatever file name they had before, but they now have a M4R extension and are ready to be imported into your Tones library. I know this sounds way more complicated than it is, if I sat down at your keyboard knowing which folder the files are in I could do this in 10 seconds flat. If your files are in a subfolder way down in your folder structure you could simply use Windows Explorer and either move the entire folder into your root directory, c:, or make a new temporary folder in c: or even c:\users\robert just so you don't have to change to a folder which has such a long path. If you feel uncomfortable with this or are unsure, just send me an email to siegh...@live.ca and I can call you on the regular phone or we can use Facetime Audio and I can walk you through this step by step, if I can hear your screenreader it would be super easy. You can iMessage or Facetime Audio to the above address as well. I don't know what time zone you are in, just keep in mind that I am in Canada and the Pacific Time Zone, you can simply ask SIRI what time it is in Vancouver which would be the same as the time in the town where I live. Regards, Sieghard -----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Doc Wright Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 2:35 AM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: extention converter Has anyone run across a windows software that will allow me to point to a folder of m4a files and change the a to r, b or v? I am working on a folder of mp3 tones that total 8000 files. Converting to m4a isn't a problem. Its having to manually change each .m4a to .m4r that has me shaking! **** If we can't look at ourselves, and ask, why? then where does the learning start? -- The following information is important for all members of the viphone list. All new members to the this list are moderated by default. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. 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