Tab between files during renaming in Finder... am I going mad?

[Piplodocus]

I was renaming a load of files a couple of days ago on my Mac, edited the first one, hit tab to go to the next, aaaaaand... it just finishes renaming and that's it. Is that normal? Then I have to click the next file (with added annoyance that the currently selected one may have moved somewhere else alphabetically, so can't just press the down arrow), then have to click again or press Enter to type the next. If I have loads of files to rename that's SUPER annoying I can't just tab to the next.

BUT... didn't this used to work? Am I going mad? Can it be totally ingrained second nature to me to do this in Windows, but somehow after ~12 years of Mac ownership I've never noticed it doesn't do it in Finder? Really? Or has it changed sometime since High Sierra and used to work, but doesn't now? Have I buggered about in my keyboard or system settings and turned it off? Can I turn that functionality back on if so?

(...And before you all suggest it, no, I don't want to use the "easier" batch renaming tool/method instead, because these I was renaming from certain names to very specific other ones required by software to recognise)

 

[FreakinEurekan]

It’s not every day that I do a bulk, individual renaming of a bunch of files in Finder but… sounds like normal behavior to me. You can change the Sort options to avoid files moving around, but otherwise batch is WAY easier.

 

[Piplodocus]

Yeah. I tried a Mac at work with Catalina or something on. Seems the same.

So it looks like I’m just going mad. I would have put money on being able to tab to the next name like windows does. Maybe if previously not changing the name enough to change the order alphabetically I just press down arrow and enter each time. I’m obviously just getting old and going senile. ?

 

[chrfr]

BUT... didn't this used to work? Am I going mad? Can it be totally ingrained second nature to me to do this in Windows, but somehow after ~12 years of Mac ownership I've never noticed it doesn't do it in Finder?

This is how Mac Finder has worked forever. You can move from one file to another using the arrow keys, but not tab.

 

[afterhours]

Have you considered an app to do your renaming. NameChanger is pretty capable -- something I've used in the past.

 

[villein]

I do some manual file renaming for my Plex server, and the easiest thing I've found is: hit enter, change filename, hit enter, down arrow, repeat process. It keeps you from having to manually click on each one at any rate.

 

[usagora]

Yep, Windows definitely has the advantage here. It would be such a simple thing for Apple to implement, but that would be standard logic, not Apple logic

 

[McDub]

Finder is just as easy as Windows, albeit a little different. Highlight a file name by pressing Enter or Return, change your name, then hit Tab twice (once sets the file name, twice moves to the next file) and Enter or Return again. I just finished re-naming about 4 million files to adhere to a system-wide naming convention across both platforms. Batch re-naming was necessary, for sure, but the need to go from one individual file to the next came up constantly. Also, take a look at the MacOS keyboard shortcuts here Mac Keyboard Shortcuts. There's a whole slew of shortcuts for moving/naming files that will cut down your mousing by at least 50% In the end I found that it's a toss-up between Windows and MacOS as to which has the better built-in naming and organization tools.