How to change the Computer Name for a Mac

Created by Martin Parkinson, Modified on Sun, 2 Jul, 2023 at 3:20 PM by Martin Parkinson

Changing your Mac's name is important because that is how others will find you on a network. It is important for Influence because when you login to the database it uses your Computer name to determine how many session you have logged in. (You have a Max. of 4 allowed)

We Suggest you set your Computer Name to something relevant to yourself, eg.

MyCompany-YourName (e.g. Influence-Fred.Smith)

How to change the name

Launch ‘System Preferences’

Click the ‘Sharing’ icon

Close ‘System Preferences’ – it’s that easy

Name your Mac whatever you want, but you’ll want to keep it distinguishable from other Mac’s on your network. As mentioned earlier, this is also what you will see in the remarkably basic “Computer Name” screensaver.

Important:
If you are using your Mac to connect to a Terminal Services session, then you *must* make sure you log OFF your Terminal Services session before changing the name of your Mac, and then perform the rename. If you do not do so the Terminal Services session will retain the 'old' computer name until you do log-off, which may cause network problems if there are other Mac's with the same computer name.