change directory name in url only htaccess - .htaccess

Question

I have a directory in my web root projectae/project/index.php and I want to change directory name only in url but in root still have the of projectae so I want to change
localhost/projectae/project/index.php
to
localhost/ae/project
I did some try on my htaccess but none succeed
I did try :
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET\ /projectae/
RewriteRule ^projectae/(.*)$ /ae/$1 [L]
I also tried
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^pojectae/project/$ /ae/project/$1 [L]
I did clear cache nothing work; I did restart apache nothing work
my config file :
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
<Directory /var/www/html/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
<IfModule mod_dir.c>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.pl index.cgi index.html index.xhtml index.htm
</IfModule>
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

Your description suggests that you want to rewrite the other way round:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/?ae/(.*)$ /projectae/$1 [L]
A typical combination would be to combine rules for redirection and rewriting:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/?projectae/(.*)$ /ae/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^/?ae/(.*)$ /projectae/$1 [L]
Those rules will work likewise in the http servers central host configuration or in a distributed configuration file (".htaccess" style file). If you really have to use such a distributed file then take care that it's consideration is enabled in your host configuration (see the documentation for the AllowOverride directive) and that above rule is placed in such a file inside the DOCUMENT_ROOT folder of the http host.