First of all, Happy Thanksgiving! Hopefully this file renaming tip will be a very thankful discovery for those who never knew there was an easy way to do this.

Don’t you hate it when you attempt to rename a file or folder by slowly and stressfully double-clicking on the file’s label to enter text mode and rename your file but you find it opening the file/folder instead? It happens to me all the time. How so very annoying. I have to make sure my double-clicks have appropriate time gaps in between clicks which cranks up my wrist.

I don’t need that stress when I have to simply rename a file.

You guessed right, renaming files is so easy with Macs. Another excellent productivity tool to make your renaming experience a bliss.

Ready?

1. Select a file you want to rename.
2. Hit the [ENTER] key

That’s it – you’re in text mode and ready to rename your file! Hit [ENTER] again to apply the new file name.

There is an improved renaming experience in Leopard which I very much welcome. In the pre-Leopard days, when you enter text mode (by hitting the [ENTER] key), the whole label would change as soon as you type.

Let’s take a look at how renaming looks like in Tiger:

Leopard does it differently and better where it automatically selects the filename but not its extension (which makes totally sense because when you rename a file, you almost never change its extension), let’s take a look:

May you never be annoyed or stressful by renaming files ever again — unless you use the “other” operating system. :)