Use AppleScript to Quickly Change File Names in Lion

Back in 2006 I wrote about how to quickly change item names in the finder using Apple Scripts. Well when Snow Leopard came out, the Finder scrips that were used to create this were no longer included. Desperately missing this feature I was able to resurrect the scripts, and now you can do the same.

Follow these simple steps or check out the video to see how to do it.

Since these scripts are no longer included, start by downloading them here.

Once the scripts have downloaded unzip them. I recommend you move them to the desktop for easy access.

Open the AppleScript Editor. It can be found in Application>Utilities>AppleScript Editor

Open the AppleScript Editor preferences and make sure to select the show script menu in menu bar option as well as show computer scripts.

Screen-Shot-2011-08-09-at-12.43

Now the AppleScript menu should appear in your menu bar for easy access.

scriptmenu

Select the open scripts folder option.

Screen-Shot-2011-08-09-at-12.50

Then select the open computer scripts folder.

Screen-Shot-2011-08-09-at-12.49

The computer scrips folder will appear on the desktop.

Drag the Finder Scripts folder that you downloaded and unzipped into the computer scripts folder. It will ask you to authorize it, so be sure to put in the administrative password (You can also do this just the user if you don’t want is to be available system wide.).

Now you will see the Finder Scrips show in the scripts menu and you can select the change text in file names as detailed in the Use AppleScript to Quickly Change File Names post.

Screen-Shot-2011-08-09-at-12.42

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5 Responses to “Use AppleScript to Quickly Change File Names in Lion”


  1. 1 Chris Nov 20th, 2011 at 5:15 am

    Thank you very much! I was not aware of pre-packaged scripts in earlier versions of OS “not,lion.”
    I didn’t start playing around with scripts till lion, what a time saver!

  2. 2 Chris Nov 20th, 2011 at 5:16 am

    now I will google the other pre pac scripts 🙂

  3. 3 Marco Nov 25th, 2011 at 2:52 am

    Thanks a lot! I have no idea why Apple stopped providing the scripts but thanks for helping us out!

  4. 4 Robert Hammond Dec 30th, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    Hi
    I just wanted to say thanks. I used these scripts and missed them with 10.6. I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around Automator but these do exactly what I need.
    Thanks for putting sharing them.

  5. 5 Nick Benes Jun 20th, 2014 at 9:43 am

    The Finder scripts stopped working in Mavericks — looks like they swapped the order of some dialog return values in the AppleScript API.

    I updated the scripts and posted them here: https://github.com/nickbenes/mavericks-finder-scripts. I’ve tested in Mavericks and they all seem to work. I haven’t migrated to Yosemite but will test there when I do.

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