Previously we published about how we can easily change the name of Mac from the System Preferences. The method we described is the official method as mentioned by Apple documentation. But there are more than one ways to rename a Mac. We can use rename it using the System Preferences or we can use a third party tool called SystemName to do the same.
SystemName is a free tool for changing the name of your Mac. It is a small tool that has to be run with administrator access. When we use it, macOS will automatically ask for the admin credentials. It has a very compact user interface that displays the current status of your Mac.
In its small window, we can see the current computer name, the host name and the local host name. If any of these are not set, then it will display “not set” for that parameter. There is a textbox in which we can enter the new name for the computer. We have to select the items that we want to rename (computer name, host name and local host name) and finally click on the Change System Name button.
Before any changes are made to the system, it will ask for the administrator access and you have to enter your username and password. After the changes are applied to your system, you must restart your Mac so that those changes can actually take effect.
Compared to the System Preferences method, using SystemName app is fairly easy and straightforward. You do not have to look for any specific setting as the only changes it allows are the renaming of your Mac. It does not make any backup of the old names, but we can always use SystemName once again if we wish to revert to the old computer name.
You can download SystemName from https://whatroute.net/systemname.html.