Change hostname on Mac OSX

Ever needed to change the name (hostname) of the computer and/or laptop that you are on…well, I’ve needed to do this a few times.

So I’m documenting for the rest of the world…if you’ve ever experienced the pain and found it a bit frustrating or furthermore if it's your first time changing the hostname on your MAC OS — let me help you. Note, this needs to be done via the terminal. The terminal can be accessed via the Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal. Check out these quick terminal shortcuts.

To simply find out the hostname of your Mac:

Run the following command: hostname

Whatever the output of the above command…that is your hostname (local name for your computer). So may you want to change it? Hopefully, you want to as that is the point of this quick blog post.

To change the hostname on your MAC, do the following:

sudo scutil –set HostName {ReplaceDesiredHostNameHere}

That will rename your hostname — these changes won’t take effect immediately. You’ll need to close the terminal session for it to take place.