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Add date (yyyymmdd) to the beginning of selected file

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Posted on by rgroothuis

I'm new to Power Automate and have done some searching but not able to find the solution, hence the question in this forum.

I want to automate the following:

- File selected in File Explorer

- Hit Shortcut key

- File name is renamed and the current date yyyymmdd is added to the beginning of the file name.

Renaming a file is something I found in the help and example files. But I was not able to find info about starting the workflow on a keyboard short cut as well as how to determine which file is selected in the File Explorer.

Anybody can help? Or maybe has such an example script/workflow for me? Thanks.

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Power Automate Desktop

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Riyaz_riz11 4,150 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @rgroothuis
can you brief on this what it is required.

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rgroothuis 8 on at

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@Ahammad_Riyaz When in the File Explorer I've a file selected. With a keyboard shortcut I want to start a script that adds the date to the beginning of the selected file name.

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Riyaz_riz11 4,150 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Try this

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rgroothuis 8 on at

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Thanks @Ahammad_Riyaz for your quick suggestion. The Select File Dialog opens een window to select the file. In my case it is an extra manual action which takes time. I already have the file selected in the File Explorer. I only want to press a key combination which will trigger the workflow to update the "selected" file name by adding the date to the beginning. That is what I'm trying to achieve.

In the documentation I cannot find if it is possible to retrieve the selected file in explorer! And also I don't know how to kick off a workflow by using a keyboard shortcut.

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Gidi 601 on at

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Hi rgroothuis,
I think a solution with Power Automate will not make you lucky in this case, because starting a flow takes long time and you need it running all the time you want to use your shortcut.
Maybe a solution with using a batch file, with passing the files as arguments, that will be started via ‚send to‘ context menu in the file explorer is a more fitting solution for you.

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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Here you go. It has to be continuously running in the background while you want to change files. It loops continuously and waits for a shortcut key, and will use keyboard commands to rename the file (which you should have already selected). The picture is just so you can see the visual, but you can literally copy and paste the code below to get you a good starting point and all you have to do is change the date format to whatever you want. This code adds "_MMddyyyy" format on the end of the selected file name. Good luck.

LOOP WHILE (1) = (1)
MouseAndKeyboard.WaitForShortcutKey.WaitForShortcutKey InputKeys: ['Ctrl+H'] IndexOfShortcutKeyPressed=> Key
DateTime.GetCurrentDateTime.Local DateTimeFormat: DateTime.DateTimeFormat.DateOnly CurrentDateTime=> CurrentDateTime
Text.ConvertDateTimeToText.FromCustomDateTime DateTime: CurrentDateTime CustomFormat: $'''MMddyyyy''' Result=> Datemmddyyyy
MouseAndKeyboard.SendKeys.FocusAndSendKeys TextToSend: $'''{Apps}m{Control}({Right})_%Datemmddyyyy%{Enter}''' DelayBetweenKeystrokes: 10 SendTextAsHardwareKeys: False
END

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rgroothuis 8 on at

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Thanks for the feedback and suggestion. As @Gidi mentioned, maybe this is not the right tool to do this. I will continue searching. Thanks again.

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