MO2 Nexus Downloads Renamer

Update: On June 23rd 2026 the archive name format was changed again. Nexus added a unique slug to the end of the file name which more or less ensures file name collisions won't happen (for now). Mod and file IDs are still not present in the file names. If you wish to have them included, this plugin supports the new format since version 1. 3. Mod ID was added in a later update as well. The plugin still supports all the possible name string formats for those who wish to keep using it.

On June 11th 2026 Nexus made a change to the file upload system. Since this change went live, any files uploaded to Nexus have been missing the mod and version information that was previously present in all downloaded files.

This change presents two significant problems for MO2 users:

• []Most mod authors don't change the name of a file when updating. This means that any updated files will clash with older versions of said files the user has in their downloads folder.[/]

  []If two mod authors use the same name for a file, those two files will clash. This isn't too uncommon, as many authors use generic names for their optional files like "2K textures".[/]

Until Nexus (hopefully) reverts this change, this MO2 plugin can be used as an interim solution to help with the above issues.

Features:

• []Automatically renames downloaded archives that are missing mod and file IDs from their names.[/]

  []Adds an option into the Tools menu to scan the whole downloads folder for archives missing mod and file IDs, and renaming them.[/]

  []All name changes are logged.[/]

  []If the same file was already present in the downloads folder the renaming fails, and a warning is printed in the log.[/]

Installation:

Download and unzip the archive, place the contents of the "plugins" folder inside your MO2 plugins folder.

Configuration:

Settings can be changed in the Plugins tab of the MO2 Settings menu.

renameOldFormat - disable or enable renaming of archives in the format used between June 11th and 22nd, where archive name = file name on Nexus.

renameNewFormat - disable or enable renaming of archives in the format used June 23rd onwards.

repairInstallationFileLinks - Attempt to repair installationFile data of installed mods on the next run of DownloadRenamer from the Tools menu. Defaults to True, and is automatically set to False after the next run of DownloadRenamer. More information:

This attempts to fix installationFile data for mods the archives of which were renamed by 1. 0. 5 or older version of this plugin, or by some external tool. MO2 uses the installationFile data to track which archive the mod was installed from, and to update the installation status of the download when the mod is uninstalled or overwritten (i.e. change the status to Uninstalled). This data was not correctly updated by versions 1. 0. 5 or older of this plugin, but has been fixed in 1. 1. 0 and later.

Typically there should be no need to ever set this manually to True after the first run of DownloadRenamer, but the option is there if you need it

includeTimestamp - default True. Set to False if you don't want a POSIX timestamp appended to the end of the archive name. POSIX timestamp only available for files downloaded on 8th of July 2026 or later.

Caveats:

Because the archives are renamed post download, MO2 will no longer notify you about the file already being in your downloads folder, as these checks are done based on the file name. The download manager API MO2 exposes does not allow repairing this functionality unfortunately.

Credits:

The MO2 Team for the best mod manager for Bethesda games