Change Application Display Name in Mac OS X
This is a cool little trick I figured out a couple months ago. When you run an application in Mac OS X you’ll notice that the name of the application is displayed on the top left of the toolbar in Mac os X:
For whatever your reason may be- its a great prank to play on someone if anything, you can change the name that is displayed in the toolbar when running an application. It will also change the name of the application when looking at the “current application” in network administration tools such as Apple Remote Desktop.
Solution 1
(Applications that can be run in multiple languages- Itunes, IPhoto, Chrome, etc):
- Right click on desired application.
- Click “Display Package Contents“.
- Inside the “Contents” folder, click on the “Resources” folder and find the “English.lproj” or the “en.lproj” folder.
- Right click on the “English.lproj” or “en.lproj” folder and click “Get Info“.
- Make sure that the account you’re using has read & write permissions. You will need to be logged into an administrator account to set the proper permissions.
- Inside the “English.lproj” folder find the file named “Infoplist.strings“
- Right click on the “Infoplist.strings” file and make sure that you also have read & write permissions for this file.
- Open the file in a text application such as TextEdit
- Find the line that looks similar to this:
CFBundleName = "Google Chrome";
(I am using Google Chrome for this example but the application name in your Infoplist.strings file should match up with the application that you would like to change the name of)
- Change the “Google Chrome” part in the Infoplist.strings file to whatever your desired name is.
- Save the file, restart the application and the new name will now be displayed:
Solution 2
(Applications that can be run in only one language):
- Right click on desired application.
- Click “Display Package Contents“.
- Right click on the “Contents” folder, click “Get info” and make sure that the account you’re using has read & write permissions. You will need to be logged into an administrator account to set the proper permissions.
- Inside the “Contents” folder find the file named “info.plist“
- Right click on the “Info.plist” file, click “Get info” and make sure that you also have read & write permissions for this file.
- Open the file in a text application such as TextEdit
- Find the line that looks similar to this:
<key>CFBundleName</key> <string>Google Chrome</string>
(I am using Google Chrome for this example but the application name in your info.plist file should match up with the application that you would like to change the name of)
- Change the “Google Chrome” part in the info.plist file to whatever your desired name is.
- Save the file, restart the application and the new name will now be displayed:
If you would like more information on modifying plist.info files check out this article on MacTipsAndTricks.com!
About Anson Alexander
Anson Alexander is a graduate from the University of Tampa with a degree in International Business and Information Systems.A previous IT Administrator for a medium size publication company, Anson has recently decided to work full time on his own business by publishing on AnsonAlex.com, publishing technology tutorials on YouTube and offering SEO, IT training and digital marketing services.His main interests include technology, social media, infographics, economics, marketing and web design.Connect with Anson on Google+.
And how to change the name displayed in the Dock without changing the app file name ?
The solutions listed above are the only way to change the name of an application in your dock – sorry!