Renaming outside of DPL is quite okay, but search will deliver false positives when the folders are renamed with DPL closed. If one doesn’t use search and projects, renaming is relatively straightforward indeed.
…in this case, you need to add an extra renaming step for these files. Nevertheless, it’s best to avoid duplicate names.
From what I understand it’s dangerous to rename while PL is running. As I understand, if PL detects a missing raw file, it will delete an associated sidecar. This can result in the complete loss of edits.
So just to be clear. Rename from within DXO or if you are renaming from outside Photolab then make sure Photolab is closed.
Depending on circumstances and goals, renaming gets more or less complicated. It’s best to not rename files and folders if ever possible.
Don’t save recipes and develop mostly from scratch - and renaming gets really simple.
Keep everything and edit on more than one computer - and you’ll have a hard time.
There is no free lunch. 
The main difficulty (horror, actually) with DPL in this area is, that it has no means to reconcile its database with what’s on the drive. This lack of feature makes DPL practically useless for asset management.
It’s scarcely believable that this wasn’t taken into account right from the creation of the tools in question …
No photographer works on his laptop when he’s on the move and on his workstation at his desk, is it ? (just an example here).
Many posts here deal with such or similar situations.
Here, it’s about bulk renaming and my tests showed that bulk renaming can be done, all while keeping DPL’s database in relatively good shape…as long as we don’t rename folders or move images to different folders.
There is a feature in exiftool for renaming files
That’s a great way to disconnect all your files from their edits destroying all the work spent editing.
This whole discussion is about renaming files after some editing has been done. Renaming the files without renaming sidecars destroys the relationship between the edits and the images they apply to.
If you’re gonna use exiftool to rename you images make sure you know what you’re doing so you don’t destroy your edits.
This kind of photo management is why DAM exists.
And if DxO PL’s built in management is not enough - I recommend it to take a look at some of those extremely competent ones that’s been discussed a lot.
Naming or rename should only be done during ingesting into the DAM before editing or upon exporting for delivery free editing.
Everything in between should be manages with meta data, tags and database management. Not physical name changes.
In an ideal world yeah.
The reality is it can be done in the middle of a project.
But you really, really need to know what you’re doing.
And doing a batch rename with exiftool is NOT the solution.
You may try to rename the RAWs with exiftool while PL8 is running in the same directory. In my case, PL8.3.1/Win11 automatically renamed the associated .DOP files and updated the photos database. It did not update/rename the OutputItems entry in the DOP file. It seems to be an undocumented feature and the method sounds a bit risky, so better make a backup of the directory before trying. Maybe it’s one of those “minor bug fixes”. Not sure about interaction with PL Projects, XMP files, or external DAM – I don’t use them. PL/Win registers for directory change events and acts “accordingly”. Probably the same goes for Macs. It does NOT apply to subdirectories.
Yes … PL used to be quite sensitive about renaming source (eg. RAW) files without also renaming associated sidecar (.dop) files - but it’s now a lot more resilient.
Note: The following relates ONLY to renaming files whilst PL is running with focus on the same folder … and I recommend taking a backup before trying this (just to be sure);
One can rename multiple source-files from outside PL … and delete their “old” sidecar/.dop files
PL will recognise that sidecar/.dop files are missing for the newly-named source files, and it will generate corresponding new sidecar/.dop files.
To be really sure about this, one can select all (renamed) source files and use the menu option: File/Sidecars/Export
This works because PL is generating sidecars from related database contents.
I get that the edits are in the sidecar and in the edits but how does Photolab know which files were renamed to which new names?
Is it checksumming files and then finding the new file names by matching the checksums? Or is Photolab subscribing to the file system watcher to get notified of renames?
Anyway hopefully this is solidly done and won’t cause people problems in the future.
Yes it is.
Windows here, but probably it applies also to Mac.
Info based on ProcMon trace.
EDIT: In PL7.6 ProcMon PML trace found the NotifyChangeDirectory system call, when PL was started with the last directory used ‘D:\Photo\2018’:
Operation: NotifyChangeDirectory
Path: D:\Photo\2018
Filter: FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_FILE_NAME, FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_DIR_NAME, FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_WRITE
I didn’t repeat this with PL8 but it should be the same.
Assuming that all images have their sidecars, I’d try the following:
This should import the image files with their new names, settings, metadata etc. Things not contained in sidecars will be lost though. What is lost depends on which version of PhotoLab is used and whether it is used on macOS or Windows. I’m not going into details here, other threads cover that topic already.
Notes: 1) on macOS, I can list the files and sidecars with a search and rename the search results. Not sure if and how Windows can do that. 2) Test before going all in. 3) If things fail, restore your backup. 4) If you just rename files in a few folders, you might want to rename those files on PhotoLab. 5) Renaming search results in PhotoLab might be feasible too, but search will only show 1000 images. 