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How Do I Change The Name On An Peripheral I Bought On Ebay?

H

Heat_Fan89

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Feb 23, 2016
2,973
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I bought an Apple Magic Trackpad Gen 1 on Ebay for $35. When I go to SysPrefs and look at my Bluetooth devices, the Magic Trackpad has another name associated with it. If I hold down the Control+Right Click, I can rename the devices but the person's name keeps coming back. Is there a way to permanently make the name change?

I tried changing the name on my original Magic Keyboard and the same thing happens, it defaults to the previous name i.e. "System Administrators Keyboard"
 
I've renamed all of my BT devices and the names stick.

Go to System Preferences > Bluetooth
Select the device (keyboard/trackpad/etc)
Right-click on the device
Choose RENAME
Enter the new name
Click RENAME

That process has always worked for me.
 
Thanks for the reply but the changes are still reverting back on both devices. I'm the original owner of the keyboard. Perhaps a Catalina bug? I can rename the device, it accepts the name, then the spinning gear appears. I close the window and reopen it and the default names are back.
 
If you hold Shift and Option and click on the Bluetooth menu in the menu bar, you could try Debug > Factory reset all connected Apple devices. Though this would reset any other Apple peripherals you have connected as well, it might solve your issue here.
 
I recently bought a Gen 1 Magic Trackpad also and had the same problem. It seems like a bug within Catalina. I ended up connecting the trackpad to a Mac running legacy software and renaming it in that environment in order for the change to 'stick'.
 
cambookpro said:
If you hold Shift and Option and click on the Bluetooth menu in the menu bar, you could try Debug > Factory reset all connected Apple devices. Though this would reset any other Apple peripherals you have connected as well, it might solve your issue here.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the suggestion but it didn't work.
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Justin122 said:
I recently bought a Gen 1 Magic Trackpad also and had the same problem. It seems like a bug within Catalina. I ended up connecting the trackpad to a Mac running legacy software and renaming it in that environment in order for the change to 'stick'.
Click to expand...
Thanks that's what I had thought, it's a Catalina bug
 
If it is Catalina-related then there must be another condition to meet because I was able to rename my Magic Mouse 2 just fine right now on my MacBook running 10.15.4.
 
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Yes I can confirm it's a Catalina bug. I installed Mojave and I was able to successfully change the name on the Magic TrackPad.
 
It is not general Catalina bug. It works for me in 10.15.5 without any issues. I do not doubt you have this problem, but it is not problem for everyone. Something is provoking it and that can create challenge for Apple to reproduce it.
 
Honza1 said:
It is not general Catalina bug. It works for me in 10.15.5 without any issues. I do not doubt you have this problem, but it is not problem for everyone. Something is provoking it and that can create challenge for Apple to reproduce it.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, however I was only able to change the name and make it permanent once I installed Mojave. I then installed Catalina and it's updated to 10.15.5 so I'm current. I just tried to rename my Magic Trackpad in Catalina and guess what happens? It reverts back to the previous change which I did in Mojave.

This is on a 2012 Mini with a Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad both generation 1 peripherals. Here's the rub, whatever the hell is causing doesn't matter because both the hardware and software are both designed by Apple. This should not be a happening.
 
I just bought a used Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2. After resetting all the devices to factory defaults, the mouse defaulted to Magic Mouse 2 while the Trackpad and Keyboard defaulted to their previous owner’s name. On Catalina 10.15.6.

Update:

Connecting to an older MacBook running High Sierra solved the issue as well. Was able to rename which carried over to my Catalina machine.
 
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Also experiencing this as a "Magic" Gen 1 products interfacing with Catalina problem.

I can rename the devices on a MacBook Pro running High Sierra.

It's weird though, if I do this renaming, works fine in macOS, but in Bootcamp Windows cannot keep a stable connection with the peripherals after reconnecting and then restart. Even though the peripherals show "connected" in the device list, there is no response.

::Sigh::
 
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