Family Renamer

Family Renamer provides a focused tool for renaming loaded families and family types in bulk. It supports find and replace, prefix/suffix operations, case transforms, and regex patterns to help enforce naming conventions across your project. A modeless window with live preview lets you verify every change before committing them in a single undoable transaction.

Experimental

Family Renamer is currently in the Experimental panel. Features and behavior may change as development continues.

From the developer

This is a companion to Batch Rename, which handles views, sheets, and levels. Family Renamer focuses specifically on loaded families and their types. I’m still iterating on it, so if something feels off or you have ideas for new operations, open an issue on GitHub.

Getting Started

Find Family Renamer on the Amorphous ribbon tab in the Family Tools panel.

Note

A Revit document must be open before launching Family Renamer. The button is only available when a document is active.

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Features

• Scope Filtering - Work with all families, active view families, or selected elements
• Category Tabs - Switch between Model and Annotation categories with chip-based filtering
• Inline Editing - Double-click any row to manually type a new name
• Find and Replace - Literal text replacement with optional case-sensitive matching
• Prefix / Suffix - Add a prefix or suffix to names (idempotent, always builds from the original name)
• Case Transforms - UPPER, lower, and Title Case applied with one click
• Regex Rename - Pattern-based renaming with capture group support and inline error feedback
• Batch Operations - Check individual rows or use “All visible” mode for bulk actions
• Live Preview - New Name column shows changes before applying
• Single Undo - All renames applied in one Revit transaction
• Search - Filter the grid by name, new name, or category text

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How to Use

Basic Workflow

1. Select scope - Choose All Families, Active View, or Selected Elements using the radio buttons at the top of the window
2. Filter categories - Use the Model / Annotation tabs and category chips to narrow the list. Use the search box to filter further by name or category.
3. Select target - In the toolbar, choose whether tools affect Families, Types, or Both
4. Transform names - Use the tool buttons to modify names:
   • Find and Replace for text substitution
   • Prefix / Suffix for adding standard prefixes or suffixes
   • UPPER / lower / Title Case for case normalization
   • Regex for pattern-based renaming with capture groups
5. Review - Check the New Name column for previews (modified rows are highlighted in purple)
6. Apply - Click Apply to rename in Revit as a single undoable transaction

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Scope Options

Choose which families appear in the grid by selecting a scope at the top of the window.

Scope	Description
All Families	Every loaded family in the project
Active View	Only families placed in the current view
Selected Elements	Only families from elements you have selected in the model

Tip

Use Selected Elements when you need to rename a small group of families. Select the elements in the model first, then launch Family Renamer.

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Filtering and Selection

Category Tabs

The window provides Model and Annotation tabs. Switching tabs shows only families belonging to that category group.

Category Chips

Within each tab, category chips let you isolate specific categories. Click one or more chips to filter the grid. When no chips are selected, all categories in that tab are shown.

Search

The search box filters rows by matching against the current name, new name, or category text. This is useful for locating specific families in a large list.

Target Selection

The Target dropdown in the toolbar controls which row types the rename tools affect:

Target	Description
Families	Tools only affect family-level rows
Types	Tools only affect type-level rows
Both	Tools affect both family and type rows

Apply Mode

The Apply to toggle controls the scope of tool operations and the final Apply action:

Mode	Description
Checked rows	Tools and Apply act only on rows with a checked checkbox
All visible	Tools and Apply act on every row currently visible in the grid

Tip

Use All visible mode when you want to rename everything matching your current filter without manually checking individual rows.

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Rename Tools

Find and Replace

Click Find & Replace to expand the flyout panel.

1. Enter text in the Find field
2. Optionally enter replacement text in the Replace field (leave empty to delete matched text)
3. Toggle the Aa checkbox for case-sensitive matching
4. Click Replace All to apply

The replacement works on the New Name if one already exists, otherwise on the Current Name.

Prefix / Suffix

Click Prefix / Suffix to expand the flyout panel.

1. Enter a Prefix, a Suffix, or both
2. Click Apply to prepend and/or append to the original Current Name

Repeated applications always build from the original name, not from a previously modified name. For example, applying a prefix twice does not double the prefix.

From the developer

This was a deliberate choice. In early testing I kept accidentally double-prefixing families when experimenting with different naming patterns. Now you can tweak the prefix/suffix freely without worrying about stacking.

Case Transforms

Click one of the case buttons in the toolbar to apply a case transformation:

Button	Result
UPPER	Converts to all uppercase
lower	Converts to all lowercase
Title Case	Capitalizes the first letter of each word

Case transforms operate on the New Name if one already exists, otherwise on the Current Name.

Regex

Click Regex to expand the flyout panel.

1. Enter a regular expression Pattern
2. Enter a Replace string (supports capture groups $1, $2, etc.)
3. Click Apply to run the pattern against target rows

If the pattern is invalid, an inline error message appears in red below the input fields. Hover over the Pattern and Replace fields for tooltip examples.

Note

Only one flyout panel (Find & Replace, Prefix / Suffix, or Regex) can be open at a time. Opening a new panel closes any previously open panel.

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Working with the Grid

Inline Editing

Double-click any cell in the New Name column to type a custom name directly. This is useful for one-off renames that don’t follow a pattern.

Multi-Select Checkbox Behavior

When multiple rows are selected in the grid and you click a checkbox on one of them, all selected rows toggle to match that state. This makes it quick to check or uncheck groups of rows at once.

Preview and Modified Indicators

When a row has a pending rename, the New Name column shows the proposed name and the row is highlighted in purple. This preview lets you verify every change before committing.

Toolbar Controls

Control	Description
Clear	Resets the New Name on target rows back to empty
Undo All	Clears all New Name previews across every row in the grid

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Applying Changes

Click Apply to rename all targeted families and types in Revit.

• All renames are applied in a single transaction, so you can undo the entire batch with one Ctrl+Z in Revit
• On success, the window reloads data from Revit to reflect the updated names
• The status bar at the bottom shows the count of modified items, checked items (in “Checked rows” mode), and items ready to apply

Note

The Apply button is disabled when no rows have pending renames.

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Use Cases

Scenario	Recommended Approach
Naming standards enforcement	Use UPPER to convert all family names, then add a standard prefix with Prefix/Suffix
Prefix cleanup	Use regex with pattern ^OLD_ and empty replacement to remove an old prefix, then add a new one with Prefix/Suffix
Batch type renaming	Set Target to Types and apply find and replace across all type names
Selective renaming	Check specific rows and apply transforms only to those
Category-specific renaming	Use category chips to isolate a single category, then apply transforms to that subset

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Tips & Best Practices

• Combine tools in sequence - For example, use UPPER first, then Prefix/Suffix to achieve names like PREFIX_UPPERNAME
• Use search to locate families - The search box helps you quickly find specific families before applying transforms
• Preview before applying - Always check the purple-highlighted New Name column before clicking Apply
• Use “All visible” for bulk operations - When your filters already show exactly the rows you want to rename, switch to All visible mode instead of checking rows individually
• Work by category - Use category chips to isolate one category at a time for focused, controlled renaming
• Take advantage of regex - For complex naming patterns like CATEGORY-DESCRIPTION-TYPE, regex with capture groups provides precise control

Tip

If a rename fails because the target name already exists, undo in Revit with Ctrl+Z, then rename the conflicting family first before retrying.

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Limitations

Limitation	Details
In-place families excluded	In-place families do not appear in the list and cannot be renamed through this tool
System families not included	Walls, floors, and other system families cannot be renamed via the Revit API and are not listed
Duplicate name conflicts	Renaming a family to a name that already exists in the project will fail at the Revit API level
Modeless window	The document can change while the window is open. Changing scope will refresh the data, but external changes may require a manual refresh.

From the developer

System families can’t be renamed through the Revit API, but in-place family support is something I can add. If that would be useful, let me know on GitHub. In the meantime, Convert In-Place can turn them into standard loadable families first.

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Troubleshooting

Family not appearing in the list

Possible causes:

• The family is an in-place family (these are excluded)
• The family is a system family (walls, floors, etc.) which cannot be renamed
• The current scope does not include the family (e.g., Active View scope when the family is not placed in the current view)

Solution: Switch to All Families scope to see every loaded family. Verify the family is a loadable family, not in-place or a system family.

Rename fails with “name already exists”

A family or type with the proposed name already exists in the project. Revit does not allow duplicate names within the same family for types, or duplicate family names within the same category.

Solution: Undo the entire batch in Revit with Ctrl+Z. Rename or remove the conflicting family first, then retry.

Regex pattern shows an error

The regular expression pattern contains invalid syntax. An inline error message in red appears below the input field.

Solution: Check your regex syntax. Hover over the Pattern field for tooltip examples. Common issues include unescaped special characters (., (, ), [, ]). Use \. to match a literal period.

Changes not reflected after Apply

The window reloads data from Revit after a successful Apply. If changes seem missing, the scope may have changed or filters may be hiding the renamed rows.

Solution: Clear all filters and set scope to All Families to see the full list.

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Related Tools

• Export Families - Batch export family (.rfa) files from a project
• Batch Rename - Batch rename views, sheets, and levels