Can't rename Apple Keyboard or Magic Mouse -Solved-

Rafasiqueira's mathod shoul work, you must have made a mistake somewhere:

1. when you right click on highlighted device, don't click the menu, leave it open;
2. subsequently you have to physically turn off the device. For example, on wireless keyboards, you have to push the button in upper right corner for couple seconds till green led is unlit after it lights on.
3. Then you can select "Rename" in the still open right click menu.
4. Rename the device and close the pop up.
5. Turn device back on and connect.

Updated to Big Sur public beta and changing name of mouse seems to stick.

Did you try Rafasiqueira's method?

1. Connect Device
2. Go to settings, right click on device, don't click the menu, leave it open
3. Turn off device
4. Select "Rename" in the still open right click menu
5. Rename the device and close the pop up
6. Turn device back on and connect

No, you do not need a laptop. I verified that this work-around does work on a desktop.

I did it on my Mac Pro.

Only the MagicMouse. I don't have an Apple wireless keyboard in use right now.

Hopefully Apple will eventually fix it, so we don't have to use this work-around, but it's great that someone was able to figure it out.

I managed to rename using high Sierra

This worked for me. However, on step 6. when I connected, it showed the old name. I was just about ready to fire up an old MacBook for the other method, when I exited system preferences then called it up again, voila! my mouse now has the new name. Finally. Thank you Rafasiqueira

It also work with the Magic Trackpad...

Thanks a lot. This worked like a charm. I tried it normally so many times but when I did this, it got sorted from the first go.

I just had to turn off my mouse before clicking rename and actually renaming my mouse.

This didn't work for me on Catalina 10.15.7. I applied the Factory Reset (while the new MM as connected), powered off the computer (MacMini late 2012), powered back on but OS never discovered the new mouse. I used a normal wired mouse to login and then used the BT pref panel to reconnect my MM, renamed it but a few seconds later it has the normal name again.

Thank you for the advice I tried it too and it works on the Mac book air 2020 with a second hand mouse gifted by a friend who has too many!

Thank you! I never post in forums, but I have spent HOURS googling solutions to this problem with ALL sorts of things suggested, NONE of which worked. But yours did! I had to boot off of a slow USB thumb drive with High Sierra on it to do it though. I feel certain this is by design. This seems to be Apple's new business model lately is to instantly deprecate everything that came before it the second a new product is out. Very frustrating. Again, THANK YOU. :)

This is very interesting ... I thought I was going out of my mind when the instructions from Apple didn't work! It is curious though, I was able to rename my keyboard, it was just the trackpad that wouldn't work - perhaps because the trackpad is older (battery operated one). There is another update available now, so we will see if it works after this - I'm not holding my breath!

Rafasiqueira's solution is the only one so far that works perfectly! Not sure why renaming it after a power off works, but it does!

The factory reset solution did not work for me. It reset my mouse, but it still had the same (customized) name as before the factory reset when reconnected.

Thank you, thank you, thank you rafasiqueira!! I'm on Catalina and gave up, months ago, on changing the name of the secondhand Magic Mouse I have. Decided to give it another go and found this post. So happy I did :) For anyone having the same issue, definitely try rafasiqueira's method!

Nope. I tried 10.10.5 Yosemite, and didn't work.