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Change OS X Computer Name
Filed under: Asides | July 25th, 2004
I finally figured how to change the annoying “Matthew-Mullenwegs-Computer” hostname and such: System Preferences › Sharing › Computer Name. This seems easy but since Simon didn’t know it either I thought I’d share. (35)
Jeremy S. | July 25th, 2004 @ 3:47 am
on XP or on your new Apple?
Hesam | July 25th, 2004 @ 4:49 am
I’m pretty sure he’s referring to his new Apple. It took me a while to find it too.
Brad Froehle | July 25th, 2004 @ 11:57 am
Hopefully it’ll be a lot easier in Tiger when you could just search for “computer name” in System Preferences and it would tell you where to change it.
Colin D. Devroe | July 25th, 2004 @ 1:01 pm
It’s the most logical spot, given the set of preferance panes. However, dare I ask what you’ve decided to name your gorgeous 12″ Powerbook?
Jeremy S. | July 25th, 2004 @ 2:12 pm
Oh. I totally missed the heading. Ignore my previous question.
Simon Willison | July 25th, 2004 @ 3:47 pm
Bah - so it was right under my nose! Not sure how I missed that.
Matt | July 25th, 2004 @ 4:34 pm
Its working name is “mmTop”. Haven’t decided if I’m going to stick with that.
Chris J. Davis | July 26th, 2004 @ 9:15 am
Wow, sorry I didn’t catch you were looking for that, I could have given you the answer in 2 seconds! And yeah things are much easier everywhere in Tiger. I am now using it as my everyday OS at home and it is pretty snazzy. Spotlight rocks my socks off as they say.
Oh and I am serving my site and 4 others right now on that iMac running Tiger.
Mike | March 7th, 2005 @ 2:53 pm
Thanks for posting - much faster to find you via google than to search through my own system
Ender | March 25th, 2005 @ 6:24 pm
Thanks for the tip, you’ve been indexed, I found this tip via Google
James | November 4th, 2005 @ 2:48 pm
Good lord that is an obtuse location… thanks to this post though, I now have a nicely named mac mini….
Squirt.
Thanks!
Gerry | December 12th, 2005 @ 5:29 am
cheers for that. been searching for ages. now my macs can all have individual names
Dave | December 30th, 2005 @ 5:03 am
Very obscure place to put it
Thanks for the tip, I too found it through Google and as a new Mac user am very happy to have found it at last
revolut10n | January 7th, 2006 @ 11:49 pm
yeah, w/out saying too much it was in the last place i’d have looked for it, too.. lol.. glad it’s done though
carter | January 12th, 2006 @ 10:02 pm
Sharing == Computer Name?! Nice one Apple. Nevermind I was just trying to ping an iMac, not share anything on it
I couldn’t even find the answer to this in OSX Help so thanks for the tip, haha…
yo | January 22nd, 2006 @ 2:34 am
thanks fer the tip. took me about 10 minutes of googling to find it…
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Dave | May 19th, 2006 @ 2:09 am
I’ve been struggling with this for a week or so. Thanks!
Love me some 12″ Powerbook! It’s now called: “Glacier of Thought”
L | July 11th, 2006 @ 2:07 am
Thanks!
pekkers | August 8th, 2006 @ 11:25 am
Thanks! Googled and learned. Such an easy thing, but still so tricky
lowlevel | August 31st, 2006 @ 8:59 am
Thanks! I’ve been poking around for weeks looking for this.
Phil | November 8th, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
Yeah. I found it by googling too, but the spotlight trick (search for “computer name”) does work to find it in Tiger.
Dai | January 5th, 2007 @ 1:06 am
Still useful up to today Jan 2007! Thanks!
John | February 7th, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
Works in Tiger 10.4.8, just reinstalling my old PowerMac dual G4 to put it in the loft for my children to possibly use when they’re older.
It seems so obvious now.
jim | February 18th, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
I kept poking around the Network settings since I was seeing the computer over a network. Thanks for the tip (google got me here too:)
marc | March 17th, 2007 @ 11:35 am
I spent ages looking for that, thanks
James | May 27th, 2007 @ 3:50 am
Thanks for this! Finally something that works!
ThePete | September 9th, 2007 @ 2:38 am
Thanks for posting about this! Even two years later it’s still not that obvious.
joel | October 22nd, 2007 @ 8:24 am
thank you
Sven | January 12th, 2008 @ 6:08 am
Thx man, btw, still valid on leopard 10.5
Support Strippers | January 28th, 2008 @ 6:54 am
TYVM. I’ve finally been able to rid our new system of the name of the foolish IT guy that set up whole system under his name. It’s just too bad he registered all the software under his name as well.
It’s rather insulting to have product emails forwarded to you from some noob that doesn’t use the system because they are listed as the point of contact.
Bit by bit his presence shall be eradicated. At least dream about it.
RichardBronosky | January 28th, 2008 @ 7:34 am
If you have trouble with your DHCP server changing your hostname on you, it can be VERY frustrating to figure out. For increased Googability, I’m posting this here.
The Leopard way to insure that your hostname doesn’t change on you is:
sudo hostname my-permanent-name; sudo scutil –set LocalHostName $(hostname); sudo scutil –set HostName $(hostname)
That should make “my-permanent-name” survive reboots and connections to corporate and hotel networks. However, you may still find the DHCP assigned name used in System Preferences>Sharing if your network has an exceptionally oppressive setup (like my company has).
rolf | April 27th, 2008 @ 7:20 pm
I thought you could not change it… or it would involve a complicated command line procedure… I was wrong. I dont think “sharing” is the logical location to put such a setting though…
Thanks for the tip
genekeats | July 1st, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
Contrarian view: Sharing is a reasonable location for the computer name, if you consider the computer name means very little until you share it, or at least present it, on a network. What is possibly more confusing is the separate hostname (DNS) and local name (mDNS) settings. As RichardBronosky points out, the hostname (.com, .net, etc.) may change according to a corporate or ISP DHCP server with reserved names, but that will not affect your local name (.local).
Champ | October 23rd, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
very thanks for your tips….