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Chrome OS is a cloud-first device, but it can’t think like a cloud-only device. I’ve known many customers over the years who prefer not to use Drive, and more still who use Drive and local storage in combination with one another. If you’re utilizing a multiple file renaming extension for Chrome, you can perform this task on Google Drive files, but sadly, there remains no way to do so locally or on external storage devices, and that’s unacceptable. If Chromebooks are going to advance further into the mainstream and mature to new levels, being adopted by new audiences and markets, Google will need to start thinking like a consumer, not like a corporation. Google, you need to fix this! Sure, many users may not speak about missing features, but that doesn’t mean they’re not essential to the Chromebook experience. More than anything, I’m writing this as a complaint.
MASS RENAME OF FILES MANUAL
If you attempt to select several files and go about renaming them the manual way – avoiding the shortcut and clicking the three-dots ‘more’ menu at the top-right of the Files app – you’ll notice that it’s greyed out. I even tried to do so after enabling ‘use top row as function keys’ via the Settings app – nothing. Much to my surprise, I was snapped back to reality when nothing happened. After moving over to my Pixelbook Go, I naturally gravitated toward this action as though it would be carried out in the same way after finding myself in a position where I again needed to rename several items simultaneously. Today, I was using Windows Explorer and highlighted several images, pressed F2 to rename them, and went on my way. I also wish that Chromebooks would steal Windows 11’s display and window location restore capabilities. Next, it did a lot of things right and it seems to have taken inspiration from the simplistic and user-friendly design of Chromebooks.
![mass rename of files mass rename of files](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9CyDw01IW-Q/maxresdefault.jpg)
First, Windows has made it very difficult for users to default to Chrome as their primary browser. Because I’ve been using my Windows 11 desktop to experiment and assess key differences between Microsoft’s new operating system and Google’s Chrome OS, I’ve come to realize a few things.