Settings
About Rename Mechanisms
The three rename mechanisms in A Better Finder Rename, Standard, Unicode File Manager and low-level rename, and when to switch for network and external volumes.
A Better Finder Rename offers a choice between three technical ways of performing the actual renaming of a file. The popup is at the
bottom of the General tab of the Settings window; the ? button next to it opens this page.
The default, Standard, is appropriate for almost all uses and there is usually no reason to change it. Whichever
mechanism is selected, when it fails to rename a file the application automatically tries the other two before
reporting an error, so the setting only decides which mechanism is tried first.
Standard
Uses the file management services of macOS. Recommended for all current versions of macOS and all Apple file systems.
Unicode File Manager
Uses the older File Manager interface of macOS. It is slower, but can succeed on some third-party file systems, network volumes and external storage devices that are not fully compatible with macOS.
Low-level rename
Uses the lowest-level rename call the system offers. It is the fastest of the three and the last resort when the other two fail.
Change the mechanism only if you see rename errors on a particular volume, or for performance on very large jobs.