Archyv vs NameChanger

What NameChanger is

NameChanger is a free batch renaming utility for the Mac from MRR Software, currently version 3.4.4, offered as a Universal build for OS X 10.13 and later. Its page states “NameChanger is free!” and invites a donation of US$5 to US$40. There is no licence to buy and no trial to run out.

It does one job with little ceremony. You add files through the window or drag them onto the app, choose a renaming method and watch the resulting names appear in the Renamed Filename column as you type. The methods include Regular Expression, Sequence and Date, with custom date formats you enter yourself, and the change log records that EXIF dates can use subseconds when available. Version 3.0 added a history of renames performed, kept automatically. An Image Browser lets you name and reorder pictures visually, and NameChanger installs as a System Service so you can select files in Finder and choose Rename with NameChanger from the right-click menu.

What Archyv is

Archyv is a native Mac app that runs one change across a whole folder of photos and video: renaming from metadata, format conversion, duplicate detection, metadata and copyright editing, folder generation, templated transfer. It works on a selection you make, with a preview before and a change history after. It is not a photo catalogue, a RAW developer, a backup tool or a file-watching service, and renaming is one of its processes rather than its reason for existing.

Where NameChanger wins

• It is free. For a simple bulk rename — a prefix, a sequence, a date — there is no argument to make. Archyv is US$99, and if renaming is the whole task that money buys nothing NameChanger does not already give you.
• Regular expressions. NameChanger lists Regular Expression among its methods; Archyv does not do regular-expression renaming at all.
• Older Macs. It runs on OS X 10.13 and later. Archyv needs macOS 14 or later.
• Finder integration. The System Service puts it one right-click away from any selection of files. Archyv works from its own Folder Navigator.
• Any file, not just photos. It renames whatever you drop on it. Archyv is built around photo and video formats.

Where Archyv wins

• Templates built from the file’s own metadata. A Filename Template combines variables from Photographer, Date / Time, Camera, Location, Descriptive and File categories — {lastname}-{yyyy}-{seq:4} produces Smith-2024-0001 — and Archyv fills them from each file. Custom variables combine fields with priority fallbacks, so a photographer code can come from a surname when there is one and an artist field when there is not.
• A rule for files that lack a value. Each template sets what happens when metadata is missing: skip the file and report it, write a placeholder such as UNKN, or prompt you. Sequence numbers restart per group, so each photographer-and-year run is numbered on its own.
• The same template elsewhere. File Sort uses it to close gaps in numbering after you delete rejects, and File Transfer uses it to resolve name clashes at the destination. The convention lives in one place.
• A dry run and a history. Simulation Mode writes every old-to-new name to the log without touching a file, on top of the live preview, and the change history lets you undo a run afterwards. NameChanger keeps a history of renames; whether it can reverse one from that history is not something its page states, as far as it shows.
• The rest of the library work. Duplicate detection with a side-by-side review, metadata and copyright writing through the bundled ExifTool, photographer attribution into EXIF, IPTC and XMP creator fields, conversion to JPEG, HEIC, AVIF or JPEG XL, and templated transfer with checksum verification — across 20 RAW formats and 11 video formats.

Side by side

Which one to choose

Choose NameChanger if…

• renaming is the whole job and the names come from text, a sequence or a date — it is free and it is enough;
• you want a regular expression;
• your Mac runs macOS 13 or earlier;
• you rename all sorts of files, not only photos.

Choose Archyv if…

• the names need photographer, camera or location fields as well as the date, and some files are missing them;
• the rename is one pass of several on the same library — rename, then transfer, then credit, then file — and you want one template and one history across all of them;
• you also need duplicate detection, copyright metadata or format conversion and would rather not assemble them from separate apps.

Using both

There is no reason not to keep both. NameChanger costs nothing and answers the quick question — twenty screenshots that need a prefix, a download that needs a sequence — in seconds from the Finder. Archyv is for the shoot that lands every week and has to come out named, numbered, credited and filed the same way each time.

Next: the full comparison page covers Finder, ExifTool, Bridge and the duplicate finders too. To see what a metadata rename looks like in Archyv, read renaming photos by date taken and photo file naming conventions.

Facts about NameChanger were checked on its own site on 17 September 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us and it will be corrected. Official site: NameChanger.