How can we help?

Getting started

1. Drop a folder anywhere on the window (or use ⌘O, or right-click a folder in Finder → Rename in RenameWise).
2. Click Analyze. The on-device model reads each file and a review card appears with the proposed name — old → new, changes highlighted.
3. Review. Click any name to edit it in place, ↻ to regenerate, the checkbox to exclude a file, ⓘ to see what the model read and why it chose that name, ⌕ to Quick Look the file.
4. Click Rename. Only now does anything change on disk. ⌘Z undoes the whole batch.

Naming options

• Names — Smart picks the right approach per file; Filing is date_sender_type for documents; Descriptive describes any file; Product is built for catalog photos.
• Style — Pascal_Case, kebab-case, snake_case or Spaces. Dates always stay YYYY-MM-DD so names sort correctly.
• Date — first, last, or none; sourced from the document's own printed date when there is one, the file's date otherwise. Impossible dates are dropped rather than guessed.
• Language — filenames in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Dutch. Company names, people and dates are never translated.
• AI instruction — free text like “shorter names” or “include the invoice number”. Applies to the current session only.
• Presets — save any combination of the above under a name and switch between client conventions in one click.
• Transform rules — deterministic touches applied after the AI: “contains walmart → prepend GROCERY-”, force UPPERCASE, and so on.

Watched folders & automation

• Watched folders (Settings → Watched folders): new files that land there are analyzed automatically and queued as review cards. Files are never renamed without you — watching only prepares the proposals. The AI model unloads itself when idle so a watched folder costs no memory while nothing is happening.
• Output folders: choose “Save to” a marked folder and approved files move there under their new names. Undo moves them right back.
• Finder Quick Actions (Settings → Install): adds Rename in RenameWise and Watch in RenameWise to the right-click menu of every folder.
• Learned corrections: fix the same word the same way twice (say acme → ACME) and RenameWise applies it automatically from then on — always shown with a badge, always editable, manageable in Settings.

Search

Pick a folder and type what you mean: “tax documents from March”, “the receipt from the coffee shop”, “photos without people”. The first search of a folder reads any files the app hasn't seen yet (you'll see progress); after that, searches are instant. Results show why each file matched, and can be filtered by kind, sorted, and saved as one-click saved searches.

Optional: enable the small helper model in Settings (via Ollama) for even sharper ranking on large folders — the app tells you the one-line install command.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘O	Open a folder
⌘R	Analyze
⌘Z	Undo last batch
⌘F	Find / replace in proposed names
⌘K	Clear the list
↑ ↓	Move between review cards
Return	Rename the focused file
F2	Edit the focused name
Space	Quick Look the focused file
⌘,	Settings

Troubleshooting

“macOS can't verify the developer” on first launch

Early-access builds aren't yet notarized, so macOS blocks the first open. The step depends on your macOS version:

• macOS 15 (Sequoia) and later: double-click the app once and dismiss the warning, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the security section and click Open Anyway. Apple removed the old right-click shortcut in Sequoia, so this is the only route.
• macOS 13–14: right-click the app in Applications and choose Open, then confirm.

Either way you only do it once; notarized builds ship with 1.0.

The engine pill says “Offline”

The built-in engine usually recovers on its own within a few seconds — it restarts automatically if it crashes. If it stays offline, quit and relaunch the app. If you've pointed Settings → Advanced at your own server (Ollama, LM Studio), check that it's running at the configured address.

The first analysis is slow

The very first file of a session loads the model (a second or two); after that expect roughly 1–2 s per file. Re-analyzing a folder you've already read is instant — results are cached until a file actually changes. A custom AI instruction adds a short second pass per file.

A date came out wrong

Dates are read off the document itself, and impossible ones (a year in the wrong century, the classic 1970-01-01) are dropped automatically. If a plausible-but-wrong date slips through, it will be highlighted in the diff — click the name and fix it before renaming; fix it the same way twice and RenameWise learns the correction.

Undo says a file is missing

Undo restores names for files where the app last saw them. If you've moved files with Finder since renaming, move them back (or just rename them manually) — moves done inside RenameWise are tracked and undo correctly.

Full FAQ

Contact

Stuck, found a bug, or have an idea? Email support@renamewise.com — we read everything and usually reply within one business day.

When reporting a problem, the app's log files live in ~/.airenamer/logs/ — attaching the latest one helps a lot. Logs never contain your file contents.