RENAMING YOUR DIGITAL PHOTO FILES ON A MAC

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more information.

When taking the time to organize your digital photo images, this is an additional step that I find beyond helpful as your images will be easily searchable and he memory quickly recognizable.

FIND LOCATION OF YOUR IMAGES

The first step is to find the location of your images on your MAC which can be done by using the finder icon. Click this and it will bring up the last location you were searching in. I use an external hard drive to store all my images to help keep my Mac running in tip top shape and not getting bogged down with photos. Check out How to Organize your Photo Files for more information!

Once your Finder is open, use the list on the left of the primary storage locations on your Mac as well as the external devices that are plugged in. Click the location of your images and from there, use the main screen to continue locating the files you would like to rename. Each mini gray arrow means there are additional files within it.

SELECTING FILES TO BE RENAMED

Once the files that you would like to rename are located, select the ones you would like to rename as the same file name with corresponding numbers by clicking once on the top file, hold down the SHIFT button and select the bottom file. This will select all files between the top and the bottom ones chosen. This can also be done by holding down CTRL (control) and selecting one at a time.

Select the top file to be renamed by clicking once

Hold down shift (and continue to hold it down) and select the last file to be renamed in this set. Once selected you can release the shift button and they will stay highlighted or selected.

Hover mouse over the highlighted files and right click the mouse to bring up the menu below. Select Rename # Items, in this case it is seven.

After clicking the Rename # Items, the Rename Finder Items box will appear. When I rename my files, I use the following options:

I have found that an underscore after the main name is a helpful way to keep the name and number separate for easier identification. I also like to use a mixture of capital and small case letters. For example:

TylersSixthBirthday_00001

WolfChristmas2018_00001

SummerCamp2018_00001

Once you have your name entered and the appropriate options selected, click Rename and ta-da!