You have a folder open, several files selected, and you want to rename all of them in one move instead of clicking through each name one at a time. Good news: macOS has done this natively for years, and it takes about three clicks once you know where the option lives. This guide keeps things quick and practical. It walks through selecting a group of files in Finder, opening the built-in rename tool, and picking the one option that matches what you want to do to the whole batch. No Terminal, no downloads, no exhaustive tour of every setting. Just the fast path to renaming a selection at once.
To rename multiple files at once on a Mac: 1) Select the files in Finder (click the first, then Shift-click the last, or press Command-A to grab everything in the folder). 2) Right-click the selection and choose Rename [N] Items. 3) Pick Replace Text, Add Text, or Format, fill it in, and click Rename. Every selected file is renamed in the same action, and Command-Z undoes the whole batch if you change your mind.
The heart of the at-once query is the selection itself. Renaming many files in one action starts with telling Finder exactly which files count as the batch. Open the folder that holds them, then choose the selection style that fits.
To grab a continuous run of files, click the first one, then hold Shift and click the last one. Finder highlights everything in between. To cherry-pick specific files that are not next to each other, hold Command and click each one you want, adding and removing files from the selection as you go. To take every file in the folder, press Command-A. Once the group is highlighted, Finder treats it as a single batch for the rename step that follows.
With your files selected, right-click anywhere on the highlighted group and choose Rename [N] Items, where N is the number of files you picked. You can also reach the same option from the Finder menu bar under File, or from the More button (the circle with three dots) in the toolbar. A small panel opens with a dropdown at the top left offering three modes: Replace Text, Add Text, and Format. That dropdown is the only decision that matters, and the next section maps each mode to what it does.
Choose Add Text when you want to stamp the same prefix or suffix onto all of the selected files without touching the rest of the name. Type the text you want to add, then choose whether it goes before or after the existing name. This is the quickest way to tag a batch with a project code, a date, or a client label.
Example: adding the prefix 2026-Q2_ to a file turns notes.pdf into 2026-Q2_notes.pdf, and every other file in the selection gets the same prefix in the same click.
Choose Replace Text when the same unwanted string appears in all the filenames and you want it gone or changed. Finder gives you a Find field and a Replace With field. It looks for that exact text in each selected filename and swaps in the replacement, leaving everything else in the name alone.
Example: with Find set to draft and Replace With set to final, a whole selection of report_draft files becomes report_final files in one pass. Leave the Replace With field empty to strip the found text entirely.
Choose Format when you want a clean, uniform name across the selection with a running number on each file. Set a Name Format of Name and Index (or Counter), type the base name every file should share, and set where the number starts. Type 01 as the starting number so the count is zero-padded, which keeps the files sorting in the right order later.
Example: select three exports named Screen Shot 2026-04-01.png, Screen Shot 2026-04-02.png, and untitled.png, set the base name to mockup and the start to 01, and they become mockup_01.png, mockup_02.png, and mockup_03.png. One selection, one sequence, one click.
If the result is not what you wanted, press Command-Z right after the rename and Finder reverts the entire batch at once, not one file at a time. The undo works cleanly as long as you do it immediately, before moving files or making other changes, so there is no risk in trying a mode to see how it lands.
The three modes each answer a different question. Match your goal to the mode below and you never have to guess which dropdown option to open.
| What you want to do to the whole selection | Finder mode to pick | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Add the same text to all of them | Add Text | A shared prefix or suffix on every file, existing names kept |
| Swap a word or string in all of them | Replace Text | One string found and replaced across every filename |
| Number them all in one sequence | Format | A uniform base name plus a running, zero-padded count |
One limit worth knowing: Finder renames by the existing filename only. It cannot read what is inside a file, so it will happily number a stack of scanned documents but it cannot name each one by the vendor, date, or invoice number printed on the page. If your batch is scanned paperwork that needs naming by content rather than by sequence, that is a different job, and Renamer.ai handles it by reading the document content directly with OCR and AI vision. For a simple selection of exports or screenshots, though, Finder's built-in rename is all you need.
For a handful of files you have open right now, the Finder method above is the fastest path there is: select, right-click, pick a mode, done. It costs nothing and ships with every Mac. The one place it runs out of road is content. Finder works from filenames, so the moment your batch needs names based on what is actually inside each document, you have crossed from a naming task into a reading task. That is the line where dedicated bulk rename software earns its place, and where a tool that reads the page instead of the filename does the work Finder cannot. Until then, the three-click selection-and-rename flow covers the everyday case cleanly.
Select the files in Finder, right-click the selection, and choose Rename [N] Items. Pick Replace Text, Add Text, or Format, fill in the fields, and click Rename. Every selected file is renamed in one action, and you do not need any extra software. This works natively in Finder on all recent versions of macOS.
Click the first file, then hold Shift and click the last to select a continuous range. Hold Command and click individual files to pick specific ones that are not next to each other. Press Command-A to select every file in the folder. Once the group is highlighted, Finder treats it as one batch for renaming.
Select the files, right-click, choose Rename Items, and set the dropdown to Add Text. Type the word you want and choose whether it goes before or after the existing name. Finder adds the same text to every selected file in one click, for example turning notes.pdf into 2026-Q2_notes.pdf across the whole batch.
Select the files, right-click, choose Rename Items, and set the dropdown to Format. Choose Name and Index, type the base name every file should share, and set the starting number to 01 so it is zero-padded. Finder numbers the entire selection in one sequence, so three files become mockup_01, mockup_02, and mockup_03.
Yes. Press Command-Z immediately after the rename and Finder reverts the whole batch at once, restoring every filename to what it was before. The undo works cleanly as long as you do it right away, before moving the files or making other changes, so there is no risk in trying a mode to see the result.
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