Renaming Files by Clicking in Finder - Not Working October 20. 2023

A SOLUTION:

Select affected files > R-click > Compress them > Open Archive > can now rename files

All re-name options should now work fine; tested with click > pause > rename; click + enter > rename; R-click > Rename option reappeared in menu. On mine the colour tag options were also greyed out; this also resolved.

LIKELY CAUSE:

Metadata corruption. (Could be coincidental, but have you by any chance also had multiple disk eject issues? I had many problems with this. On starting to reorganise data on new Mac, turns out all affected files so far were made on previous Mac with hardware issue that had caused inestimable number of corrupted files).

HOW TO TELL:

Check metadata on the affected files: is the ‘created' date correct? Mine was incorrect on all samples I was able to show Apple Support. Interestingly, they could re-name same files, but I could not. However, once Compressed and un-Archived, Created date was correct and I could rename and tag.

👏 THANK YOU MAC SENIOR TECH BECK, FOR XLNT TROUBLE-SHOOTING! 👏

I feel you. What a nightmare. The only solution here: 'Force Quit...' Finder. Everything's back to normal.

I've been having the same problem for a couple months, but for awhile it was erratic. Recently, it's been happening all the time. I'm on a 16" 2023 MacBook Pro M2 Max running Sonoma 14.2.1. I tried everything I can think of, including icon view, list view, and column view, then I tried opening and then closing the duplicated file, but nothing worked. I then tried dragging the file to the desktop as noted elsewhere on this thread, and that worked for me. It then occurred to me that there's another sure-fire way of making it work: just open the original file and Save As with the new name. Hope Apple fixes this soon so we don't need workarounds!

Makes no difference here whether I repeatedly click on the filename or the file icon in Finder Icon view mode which is my normal viewing state.

The number of times that I need to click on just the filename to get it into edit mode may vary from three to n-tuple unsuccessful clicks. But, if I single-click either the filename or icon, and press return, that results in 100% success rate to rename the file.

This has been happening off and on for me, and can be somewhat repeatable in that if I duplicate a file whose name I cannot edit, the duplicated file also has the same problem. Relaunching Finder has worked for me. Not a major effort to do this, but I was hoping for a more permanent solution.

On Sonoma 14.1, it does not matter how many times I single-click that file icon, it does not switch to filename edit mode until I press return, change the text, and then I concur, simply clicking on the Desktop has the same result as pressing return again.

I have occasionally had a problem changing a file name, but it was usually one of two things. If it is just a delay, it was usually due to low storage space on the hard drive. The other other issue is if it's a proprietary file like Apple Music or iTunes or some other download you paid for. In that case sometimes if you copy the file to another folder or the desktop you can change the name there, but it will remain as it was on the original. Another workaround would be to remove the metadata using FFMPEG--if I recall, this will allow you to rename the file.

I noticed back on Monterrey than the click > wait > rename option had vanished. Then on Ventura (Intel MBP) I had a few incidents of R-Click Rename menu option vanishing. Now on new MBP M3 with Sonoma 14.4 and after R-Click Renaming a few files, it suddenly lost the option in the menu. None of the suggestions in this thread so far has resolved it. (Tried old click and pause, double-click, duplication, dragging to desktop, click and return, right-click, n-clicks, icon click… Nada).

Interestingly it will R-click > menu> rename a newly-created screen grab, but has suddenly decided not to rename ANY of the old screengrabs I’m trying to organise, no matter how many times I click.

I can't reproduce the issue. You do have to click a file once to select and again to rename.

Make sure you're on Sonoma 14.1

The Rename menu item is a standard menu item on the secondary Finder menu when one right-clicks on a file or a folder. It is not whimsical.

The other more direct rename option is to single left-click a file or folder, press return, and then click in the selected text to enter your rename text. Then press return to complete the rename.

I am on Sonoma 14.1, but the above has existed for years, and I cannot reproduce your scenario.

VikingOSX wrote:

The other more direct rename option is to single left-click a file or folder, press return, and then click in the selected text to enter your rename text. Then press return to complete the rename.

Being obstinate this morning, I find clicking once, then again which highlights the text ready for typing is more direct, avoiding the return key. But that's me. :)

If you right click the file name and it brings up a different menu, or if you have to click the file name more than two times to bring up the ability to edit the title, if you are using a trackpad, perhaps it is not working right and has become insensitive, possibly because of battery swelling or some other issue.

Having UNIX workstations on my Desktop for a decades, icon view was the only other view outside of the command line. Even in Classic macOS v6 and later, Windoze or Linux, I avoided list view whenever possible.