Skip to content

Rename Columns

Columns > Rename columns... renames many columns at once, instead of editing each header by hand.

The list

When you open it, the box is pre-filled with every column of the active tab, one name per line:

id
dob
amount

To rename a column, add a comma (or a tab) and the new name to its line. Leave a line unchanged to keep that column's name:

id,user_id
dob,date_of_birth
amount

Here id and dob are renamed and amount is left as it is.

As you edit, a live preview shows:

  • Will rename - lines whose old name was found.
  • Not found - old names that do not match any current column.
  • Collisions - a new name that clashes with an existing column or is used twice. Apply stays disabled until you resolve them.

Load from file... appends more lines from a text file. Applying renames every matched column as one step, so a single Undo reverts the whole batch.

Duplicate column names

A file can name two columns the same thing, and then the list above cannot help: it finds a column by its name, and a repeated name picks out the wrong one. Fix duplicate names in the same dialog handles those by position instead.

Tick it and the preview lists what it would do. The first column keeps the name; every later one gets a number: id, id_2, id_3. A suffix another column already owns is skipped, so a, a, a_2 renames only the middle one (to a_3) and leaves the real a_2 alone.

Ignore upper/lower case widens it, so Name and name count as the same name and the second one gets numbered. Off by default, since some files mean those as two different columns.

Columns > Fix duplicate names... is the same dialog opened straight onto this half of it. Either way the renames join the same single undo step.

Duplicate names are worth fixing before you run SQL over the table, join it or export it: those all address a column by name.