Mac Basics: How To Rename Files

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to rename files on your Mac.

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One of the most basic things you need to do in any computer operating system is to rename files and folders. There are several ways to do this on the Mac. Here I am in the Finder and let's say I want to rename this file. All I need to do is select it and then under the File menu there is an option for Rename. If I select that then you can see that the name is selected. The file extension is not selected so you can easily rename the file while leaving the extension as is. All you need to do is type something and then when you're done press Return and the file is renamed.

Now it seems a shame that there's no keyboard shortcut for this. But actually there is. All you need to do is select the file and then press Return. That brings you right into the Rename mode. You can type and hit Return and you're done. The same thing works for folders. All you need to do is select the folder and you can either choose Rename from the File menu or press Return to enter Rename mode. Note that if you ever need to change the extension you can. It's just that it's not initially selected when you go to Rename. But you can move the cursor there and select it. You can actually quickly do it, Command A, to select All. So a quick Return and a Command A will select the entire file name. 

But that's not the only way to rename files. In fact you can rename files while you have an app open. For instance I've got this document here open in Pages. I can actually rename it while I'm working on it. Years ago you would expect to have to Save the file, Close it, Rename it in the Finder, and then open it again. But now you can actually do it while you're right in the middle of working on the file. So in Pages here, for instance, you can go to File and there's Rename. Notice when you do that it will select the name at the top in the title of the window. You can type a new name and hit Return. But you could also simply click the title, like that, and it will bring up a little dialogue box here that allows you to rename the file. You could even move the file to a new location while you have it open. It's perfectly okay to do those things while you're actually working on the file in an app. 

Now there are a few other ways to rename files that you should know about. One, of course, is to bring up the Context menu. So you could Control click, right click on a mouse, or two-finger click on a trackpad to select the Context menu. There's a Rename option right there. Another thing you can do is you can batch rename files. Rename multiple files at the same time. So let's go down to this reports folder and I've got three files there. I can select all three of them by dragging around them or I can Command click to select each one. Then I can go to File, Rename and notice there are now three dots meaning it's going to bring up a dialogue for further instruction. Now you could see I could use various rename options like Replacing Text, Adding Text, or Formatting, like for instance adding a date or a number, and I can Rename all these files at once. There are a lot of different options to choose from. 

All these options are available no matter which mode you're using in the Finder. So if I go to List View I could still select a file, press return, and Rename. I can still bring up the Context menu and select Rename or select several files and batch Rename. The same is true in Column View and even in Gallery View even though you don't see the name there below. If I were to hit Return you could see I could Rename the file here in the Information Area on the right side of the window.

Also note that all normal text functions work when you're renaming a file. So for instance I can select this file here, press Return and now I can use Command X to cut, Command V to Paste. I can hold down a key to bring up special characters or even Control Command Space to bring up emoji and special characters and add one in there for the file name too. 

So those are the basics for renaming files on your Mac. Even though it's pretty simple it's one of the most searched for questions online. So I hope this helps.