NameGnome changelog

Every release, newest first. Updates arrive in the app itself.

0.3.2 31 August 2026

The download itself is now notarised.

  • Fixed: the disk image you download was never signed or notarised — only the app inside it was. On a Mac seeing it for the first time, macOS could refuse to open the download outright, with no way past it but right-click → Open. This is the first NameGnome release whose disk image carries its own notarisation ticket, so it opens the way it should, including on a Mac that is offline.
  • If NameGnome is already installed, nothing was ever wrong with your copy and there is nothing to reinstall. The app inside every disk image was correctly signed and notarised throughout; only the moment of opening a fresh download was affected.
  • Nothing else changed in this release.

0.3.1 21 August 2026

Launch at login now actually launches NameGnome at login.

  • Fixed, and it had never worked: the Launch at login switch in Settings saved your choice and did nothing else. Anyone who switched it on and restarted their Mac found NameGnome simply not running, with nothing to explain why — which, for an app whose whole job is to watch a folder in the background, is the worst possible moment to be absent. It now adds and removes the login item properly, and checks at every launch that macOS still agrees.
  • When macOS and the switch disagree — you removed NameGnome from System Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items yourself, say, or macOS declined to add it — a line under the switch now says so and names that list, instead of the window claiming all is well.
  • If you had switched Launch at login on before this update: switch it off and on once. Your choice was remembered, but nothing was ever registered from it.

0.3.0 21 August 2026

NameGnome is now free to use — pay what you want.

  • The 14-day trial and the CHF 29 purchase are gone. NameGnome is free to use, whole and forever — renaming never stops, and nothing is held back.
  • Instead, once a month, a support notice stands in front of the folder and history panes until you dismiss it — one click — or enter a licence key. Pay what you want, from CHF 9 (suggested CHF 29), and the notice never appears again. Your history and Undo keep working behind it either way.
  • If your trial had already ended and renaming had stopped: renaming comes back on with this update, and stays on.
  • If you already bought NameGnome, nothing changes for you: your key keeps working on up to three of your Macs, and you never see the notice.

0.2.0 21 August 2026

Better photo names: an optional on-device model that describes your photos.

  • Photographs can now be named by a small image-description model that runs on your Mac — “IMG_3336 child eating pizza” instead of a list of classifier labels. It is a one-time download of about 500 MB, offered on first launch and available any time in Settings; it is fetched once, pinned to an exact version and verified against checksums built into the app, and your pictures are never uploaded anywhere. Switching it off keeps the download for an instant re-enable, and “Remove download” frees the space.
  • Screenshots benefit too: when the words on screen are too sparse or too uncertain to make a name from, the photo model describes what the screenshot shows instead of leaving the timestamp name. When the text is clearly readable, the text still wins — it carries what the screenshot is actually about.
  • Photographs named without the model got better as well: people are described in words — family, group, crowd — instead of an often-miscounted number, activity words no longer arrive in triplicate (“bicycle cycling recreation” is now “cycling”), and several taxonomy words that never helped (“ungulates”) are gone.
  • Descriptions apply to files that arrive after the model is ready; what was already named stays as it is — every rename remains one click from undone.

0.1.5 20 August 2026

Dropping a folder in now works while the app runs, and Pause means now.

  • Fixed, properly this time: dropping a whole folder into a watched folder. 0.1.4 fixed files arriving deeper in the tree, but a folder moved in wholesale was still ignored until the next launch — at the moment it arrived, NameGnome was not holding the permission it needed to look inside it, and the failure was silent. It now renames the folder's contents within seconds, while the app runs. Verified against a real Downloads folder rather than a test one, which is exactly where the previous fix fell short.
  • Pause stops the next file, not the next thousand. It used to be read once at the start of a run, so pausing mid-way through a large folder did nothing until the whole queue had drained. A paused NameGnome now also says how many files it stopped, and Resume picks the queue up immediately, where it left off.
  • Files you just dropped in are renamed ahead of the backlog. A launch sweep through hundreds of older files no longer makes the file you are actually waiting on queue behind them — and the “files waiting” count no longer counts a settling file twice.
  • The two names in History hold their lines. Undoing a rename used to swap the names' places, so the row rewrote itself under your pointer; now only the strikethrough moves. The live name — whichever line it is on — can be typed over in place, in the window and in the menu-bar popover alike.
  • When Undo is refused — because you renamed the file yourself in Finder, say — the reason now appears in the row itself, in both lists. In the popover it used to fail silently.
  • History rows in the menu-bar popover highlight under the pointer, which makes the list easier to read row by row.

0.1.4 18 August 2026

Files inside a folder you drop in are renamed straight away.

  • Fixed, and this one was worth a release on its own: dropping a whole folder into a watched folder did nothing until you next restarted NameGnome. Only files at the top level were noticed while the app was running — anything one folder deeper was ignored, then picked up all at once on the next launch, which made it look like the app was merely slow. Subfolders are now watched properly, at any depth.

0.1.3 18 August 2026

Shorter, truer names for photographs.

  • Photographs get shorter, more useful names. NameGnome was repeating the broad categories a photo classifier returns alongside its actual answer, so a picture of a window came out as “conveyance portal window” and a baby came out as “textile people baby”. Those are now “window” and “baby”. Across a real collection of 529 photographs the filler words — conveyance, portal, textile, optical equipment, utensil — went from hundreds of occurrences to none.
  • Every photograph still gets a name. 0.1.2 briefly left the least distinctive ones with the name they already had; that turned out to be about a third of a real collection, which was worse than an imperfect name. If you would rather have photographs left alone unless NameGnome is very sure, set the confidence to Cautious in Settings.
  • Fixed: renaming a file yourself in Finder. NameGnome now follows the change instead of showing the old name in History — and, more importantly, it no longer renames the file back. A name you chose is yours.
  • Fixed: the switches on the first-run window are now saved exactly as you leave them, even if you press Continue immediately afterwards.
  • The Settings window shows which version you are running, at the bottom.

0.1.1 17 August 2026

Renames on battery, and always says why it is not renaming.

  • NameGnome now renames while your Mac is on battery. It used to wait for mains power, which was the wrong trade: a day's renaming costs roughly two minutes of battery life, and waiting cost you an app that appeared to do nothing. If you would rather it waited, the setting is still there — it is just no longer the default.
  • When renaming is paused, the app says so. Whatever the reason — you asked it to wait for mains power, the Mac is too warm, or the trial has ended — there is now a clear message, the number of files waiting, and a button that fixes it in one click where a fix exists. Previously the folder showed the same spinner it shows while working, and explained nothing.
  • Fixed: nothing was left running unnecessarily in the background. The app now checks for new files far less often when there is nothing to do.
  • Corrected the description of NameGnome on this website. It said files were renamed only after a preview and your confirmation; NameGnome renames automatically, and always has. What is true — and what the app is built around — is that it never deletes, moves or alters a file, and every rename can be undone in one click.

0.1.0 16 August 2026

First release.

  • Watch the folders you choose. New files are read on your Mac and renamed after what is actually inside them — a PDF's text, the words in a screenshot, a photograph's capture date, a video's metadata.
  • Adding a folder sweeps what is already in it, subfolders included. A folder full of Scan_20260714_0031.pdf is the state most people are in when they go looking for an app like this.
  • Every rename is in History with an Undo beside it, and undoing one puts the name back on disk. Type over a name there and the file is renamed to what you typed — and then left alone.
  • Names follow a template you choose, with separate shapes for documents, receipts and photographs. NameGnome will not rename a file it is unsure about: below the confidence floor it does nothing at all, rather than guessing.
  • Runs on the model that comes with macOS. No account, no API key, nothing to install, and your files never leave your Mac. Without Apple Intelligence it still names files from their dates and file information, and says so.
  • English, German and French, following your system language.
  • Free for 14 days, then CHF 29 once. When the trial ends new files stop being renamed — and that is all that stops. Your history and Undo keep working, and nothing is undone or changed.

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