dired-toggle-read-only (usually bound to "C-x C-q"), now the Dired buffer is editable — you can change the names of files and later choose to commit those changes to disk use occur (usually bound to "M-s o") to narrow down the listed files in the Dired buffer , then use occur-edit-mode in the Occur buffer, use occur-edit-mode (bound to the "e" key) to make the occur buffer editable Use any number of query-replace ("M-%") or query-replace-regexp ("C-M-%") to rename any of the files in the Occur buffer. occur-cease-edit ("C-c C-c") to commit changes from the Occur buffer to the Dired buffer wdired-finish-edit (also bound to "C-c C-c") to commit those changes in the Dired buffer to the filesystem.