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One of the BIG advantages to using Ambrosia Software’s deeply-loved SnapZ screen capture utility is that you could preset file names prior to capturing the screen, or a portion of it. But SnapZ doesn’t work reliably in Mojave and won’t work going forward.
Apple’s Screenshot program – which replaces SnapZ – doesn’t support this naming feature. For the record, Screenshot also doesn’t support:
- Capturing the cursor (due to a bug)
- Capturing an open menu, except using a very kludgy workaround
- Dragging the selection area around the screen
- Moving the selection area using the arrow keys
15 minutes later, I came back and tried to rename the same folder that I have tried in to rename 15x before to no avail. However, IT WORKED. There is something wrong with Windows Explorer though with the 'renaming' problem. A Better Finder Rename is the most complete renaming solution available on the market today. That's why, since 1996, tens of thousands of hobbyists, professionals and businesses depend on A Better Finder Rename to organize and maintain files.The Instant Preview feature eliminates guesswork and c. There is going to be down time for the user, worrying about it being 5 minutes or 10 minutes shouldn't come in to play if the reason you are doing it benefits them in some way - like a larger drive. You can't give the computer a name of a device that already exists in AD - you'd have a duplicate and a problem.
BUT! I’ve found a great workaround – at least for file renaming. It’s called: Better Rename 10.
A Better Finder Rename is the most powerful and complete Mac file renaming application on the market. Buy From Us for $22.95 30 Day No-Hassle Money Back Guarantee, all purchases include discounted upgrades and we offer site and forever licenses.
Let me give you a tour. (And, just for the record, I purchased this software for my three computers over a year ago.)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Better Rename 10 is a utility that specializes in renaming files. It’s a subset of a larger program called Better Finder Rename 10. First released in 1996, this utility offers a “huge array of [file] renaming options organized into 15 intuitive categories that cover all the text, character, position, conversion and truncation features that you would expect from a great file renamer.
“A Better Finder Rename knows how to extract EXIF shooting date and time information from your digital camera images and exploit them in creating sequence numbers or adding time and date information to the file name.
“Support for all major RAW formats (including JPEG, HEIC, HEIF, ARW, CRW, CR2, THM, NEF, TIFF, RAF, ORF , MRW, DNG, PEF, SRF, etc.) extends this to professional photographers.” [Public Space website]
I find myself using this software each week, to create screen shots for my web articles.
Product: Better Rename 10
Developer: PublicSpace.net
Website:www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename/index.html
Mac App store:itunes.apple.com/us/app/better-rename-10/id1063663640?mt=12
Price: $19.99 (US) – A full-feature free trial version is also available.
Developer: PublicSpace.net
Website:www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename/index.html
Mac App store:itunes.apple.com/us/app/better-rename-10/id1063663640?mt=12
Price: $19.99 (US) – A full-feature free trial version is also available.
NOTE: The PublicSpace website provides a variety of other pricing and bundle options.
BIG CAUTION ABOUT RENAMING VIDEO FILES
Be very careful using this, or any utility, to rename video files stored on your camera card. Formats such as AVCHD or XDCAM use a very specific naming convention. Changing those file names risks making those file inaccessible to any video editing software.
In general, never change camera master video file names, only change the names of the folder those files are stored in. If you MUST change file names, experiment with files that you don’t care about to see what works and what doesn’t.
INSTALLATION
Installation is easy, whether you purchase this from the Mac App Store or the PublicSpace.net website. The Mac App store provides the easiest installation, while the PublicSpace website provides the widest variety of pricing, bundle and licensing options.
Either way, installation takes less than a minute.
MOJAVE SANDBOXING
Due to how Mojave (and probably later versions of the macOS) enforce file security, the first time you ask Better Rename 10 to access or change files in a folder, it requires to you grant access to that folder. Most of the time, this is a one-time-only process.
HOW IT WORKS
At it’s simplest, Better Rename 10 renames any collection of files based upon criteria you select. For example, these are screen shots captured using Apple Screenshot. Sigh… the computer may like these names, but they certainly don’t help me.
(Click to view larger image.)
This is the Better Rename 10 interface. Drag the files you want to rename into the Change box on the right, then set how you want them renamed in the left panel.
For example, here, I’m changing the files from how ScreenShot named them, to a file name that makes more sense to me.
Files are sorted in Date/Time order, with the earliest file listed first. However, you can vary the sort order, which allows you to change the order of how files are named.
What I really like, though, is that the right-hand column displays the file names that I’m about to create so I can make sure my settings are correct BEFORE I change these names permanently.
The software also tracks a vast range of metadata associated with each image. My selected images are screenshots, so there isn’t a lot of metadata to work with.
But, when you add an image shot by a camera, a lot more information becomes available.
A CLOSER LOOK
Getting back to renaming files, the left-side of the interface is where the heavy lifting occurs. This is where we design the naming convention for the selected files.
A Better Finder Rename 10 45 Minutes S52
These are the 15 categories we can use for creating new names, and inside each category are a number of naming options.
Calendarpro for google 3 3 download free. NOTE: It will be less eye-glazing for you to experiment with the free trial than for me to define each of these categories. Life is too short.
A Better Finder Rename 10 45 Minutes 7
Here, for example, I’m creating a series of files, each starting with “MyBlog_”, followed by a sequential number starting with 11 and incrementing by 1, followed by “-v2”. (The Sequential category is the one that I find the most useful – at least today.)
A Better Finder Rename 10 45 Minutes 50
Here’s what the names look like – before on the left, after on the right.
MULTI-STEP PROCESSING
You can also create multi-step workflows. Here, for example, I’m:
- Truncating all file names to 8 characters, then…
- Renaming the files in a numeric series, then…
- Adding “NewFile-” to the front of the new file name.
There does not seem to be a significant limit to the number of steps you can create.
PRESS “GO!”
When you are ready, click the blue Perform Renames button.
This is the next significant feature. It displays each file with its new name and asks you to confirm that this is what you want. Since file renaming is not undoable, I really appreciate this added safety step.
If you are confident all looks good, click Rename All and seconds later all your files are renamed. Otherwise, click Rename to view each file individually.
A Better Finder Rename Windows
Ta-DAH! (The top screen shot shows the files in the Finder before, while the bottom screen shot shows after renaming.)
SUMMARY
I really like this software. It has thousands of users, been in the market for more than 20 years, meets all of my needs and has power to burn. Plus, it is enormously flexible.
If you are looking for faster ways to get control of your files and file names, take a look at the free trial and decide for yourself. Personally, I bought this for myself a long time ago and it has been saving me time ever since.
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The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Instead of pressing return/enter on the keyboard after entering the name you can just click on the next file to rename. However, I do prefer your solution because it avoids the while having to move a hand from the keyboard to the mouse/trackpad to get the job done.
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In the Finder Scripts folder, available from the Finder's Script menu there are precompiled scripts that do this job.
I usually just take the easy route and leave the files sorted by Date in List View; then they don't jump around at all when being renamed.
A Better Finder Rename 10 45 Minutes S52
Of course, sorted by date may not put the multiple files you want to rename in close proximity to each other so you may still find yourself jumping around.
Well, second try here.. first one was flagged as spam, I guess because it contained helpful links.. So this time I'll just tell you how to discover the links on your own..
If you only need to rename a few files and you do it fairly infrequently then the posted hint has some utility. However, if you frequently have to rename lots of files, a more utilitarian approach is with the unix command line.
My preferred method is with a perl script. If you Google 'perl script rename multiple files with wildcards' you will find several fine examples of how to do this.
Alternatively, if you really want to impress your geek friends, Google this: 'linux rename command on mac os x'. One of the first links will be to a hint on this very forum that will make your day.
If you only need to rename a few files and you do it fairly infrequently then the posted hint has some utility. However, if you frequently have to rename lots of files, a more utilitarian approach is with the unix command line.
My preferred method is with a perl script. If you Google 'perl script rename multiple files with wildcards' you will find several fine examples of how to do this.
Alternatively, if you really want to impress your geek friends, Google this: 'linux rename command on mac os x'. One of the first links will be to a hint on this very forum that will make your day.
This hint is useful, but you have to be very quick with the arrow key.
joeyblades suggestion of using a shell script if you have many renames to do is correct. Larry Wall's classic 'rename' Perl script is one of the most time saving bits of code out there. I seem to remember 10.4 including an older version of file-rename, but it doesn't appear to be in 10.6. But for times when you don't need the power, knowing this hint makes Finder more useful.
joeyblades suggestion of using a shell script if you have many renames to do is correct. Larry Wall's classic 'rename' Perl script is one of the most time saving bits of code out there. I seem to remember 10.4 including an older version of file-rename, but it doesn't appear to be in 10.6. But for times when you don't need the power, knowing this hint makes Finder more useful.
If you don’t need to select the file before or after the renamed file you can also press escape—just as quickly as you’d press the cursor-up or cursor-down button.
This is a weeny li’l bit easier for me since my left hand knows better where to find escape than my right hand knows where the cursor keys are.
This is a weeny li’l bit easier for me since my left hand knows better where to find escape than my right hand knows where the cursor keys are.
Or simply use NameChanger from MRR Software.
I renamed a thousand pictures in 45 minutes or so.
BTW, it's free. ;)
I renamed a thousand pictures in 45 minutes or so.
BTW, it's free. ;)
Awesome! This works great.. Thank you!
http://www.mrrsoftware.com/MRRSoftware/NameChanger.html
(NameChanger from MRR Software.)
http://www.mrrsoftware.com/MRRSoftware/NameChanger.html
(NameChanger from MRR Software.)
Try A Better Finder Rename - http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename/
One of a set of 3 utilities that are all VERY useful.
One of a set of 3 utilities that are all VERY useful.
in alphabetical list mode i click on the name -- not the icon which won't highlight the name -- and rename the file. i hit tab or enter and QUICKLY hit the up or down arrow key. if i keep the keyboard busy the newly named files wait until half a dozen-ish are renamed, or i pause, before they move to their new spot if they need to. if you end up in the 'a's and want to get back to the 'r's, just type 'r' to jump to the 'r's in the list.
Instead of all the workarounds, can we just bash Apple a little for this? 10.5/4/3.. didn't work this way. I often have to rename files that might be in a folder of a thousand files or more. This new (to me) jumping away crap is a PITA!
I'll take this behavior over Windows 'Right-Click, Select 'Refresh' to have your changes occur' behavior any day.
Or, better, IMHO, I use a Spotlight query to group the files in need of renaming.
And I guess I must be getting old; seems to me Mac OS has always done the jump thing; I am so attuned to just knowing the name of the next file I want to rename that I simply let it jump then type those letters to get to the next target that I guess I thought this was the way it always had been.
We've always been at war with Instant Refresh.
What I miss is the elegance of using a leading Tilde to push files to the end of a list and a bullet to push it to the front. Spaces and Z's look stupid.
We've always been at war with Unicode.
F
Or, better, IMHO, I use a Spotlight query to group the files in need of renaming.
And I guess I must be getting old; seems to me Mac OS has always done the jump thing; I am so attuned to just knowing the name of the next file I want to rename that I simply let it jump then type those letters to get to the next target that I guess I thought this was the way it always had been.
We've always been at war with Instant Refresh.
What I miss is the elegance of using a leading Tilde to push files to the end of a list and a bullet to push it to the front. Spaces and Z's look stupid.
We've always been at war with Unicode.
F