A Better Finder Rename 9 Help

  A Better Finder Rename 9 Icon   When renaming files I get the "You may not have sufficient access privileges.." error message.
 

This error message covers all cases where A Better Finder Rename attempts to rename a file, but the operating system refuses to do so.

There's a number of reasons why this can happen:

  • you don't have sufficient access privileges
On Mac OS X every file and every folder is protected by a security scheme that limits who can perform which operations on them. This is governed by so called "Access Privileges". If don't have sufficient access privileges, you won't be able to change the name of the file.

You can find out (and potentially change) what your access privileges are by selecting the file(s) in the Finder and choosing "Get Info..." from the "File" menu. The relevant information is in the "Sharing & Permissions" section.
  • the file is locked
There is a flag on Mac OS X that allows files to be protected against changes. If it is set, A Better Finder Rename will not be able to rename the file. You can unlock a file by going to the Finder and choosing "Get Info..." from the "File" menu. The relevant information is in the "General" section.
  • the file is on a read-only media
You are trying to change the names of a file on CD or DVD, which is of course impossible.
  • the file is on an incompatible external drive or unsupported remote file system
Mac OS X has a "native" file system that is called "HFS+ (Journaled)". This is the basis for all file manipulations and in theory all other file systems that Mac OS X knows about should behave in exactly the same fashion.

Other file system do of course have different constraints on file names, on path lengths, maximum file sizes, etc. but these differences should be hidden by the file system driver, so that you don't need to know about them.

Unfortunately the quality of some of those file system drivers is not always what it should be and as a result you can run into problems and you might get the above error message.

You can work around most of these problems by attempting to use a different file system "renaming mechanism".

There are occasionally problems with Buffalo TeraStations which come pre-installed with an awkward proprietary file system that limits the length of the absolute paths that can be used. Please consult Buffalo's website for instructions on how to set up your TeraStation for use with a Mac.

Another frequent culprit are Flash Cards. These drivers are extremely poor and it is much safer to move the files to your Mac's hard drive before changing any names.

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