Rename Mac OS X applications

Suppose you would like to have firefox 3, 4 and now 5 simultaneously. Unfortunately renaming applications is not possible via Finder.

Suppose you have firefox3 installed. Do the following:

$ cd /Applications
$ mv Firefox.app "Firefox 3.app"

Then install firefox4 and do that

$ mv Firefox.app "Firefox 4.app"

Install firefox5 and then:

$ mv Firefox.app "Firefox 5.app"

Now you would have all three versions:

$ ls -a | grep Firefox
Firefox 3.app
Firefox 4.app
Firefox 5.app
$

The even show up correctly in Applications tab:

(I messed up in renaming and Firefox 4 is actually Firefox4)

Note: unfortunately you cannot launch them simultaneously since Firefox has a mechanism to check if it is already running.

3 thoughts on “Rename Mac OS X applications”

  1. I am the Administrator of my Mac, but get permission denied when trying to re-name applications like this. Does anyone know why or how to get around? I'm on 10.6.8.

    thank you.

    1. Maybe first execute the command "sudo su", it will ask for admin password, then do the commands in the blog post.

      1. worked - now I can finally stop Mail (which I don't use) from launching every time iCal reminder is triggered. thank you!

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