How do you change the username or computer name?

[harryPotter]

Hi, I am the administrator for my peer group.  I would like to know how to change the username or computer name of a user or peer?

I don't remember being prompted for a username when I installed Resilio Sync on each machine.  Now, all my peers have random usernames like A4736, etc.  I have no idea which peer is which machine?

I would like to change their names to something more descriptive so I can track each peer.

Thank you!

[Moe]

You can't change the username. For that to have to reinstall Sync completely. This does not mean that you have to transfer all data again; it just needs to be re-indexed on each peer you reinstall.

If you just want to rename the PC of a user you can most certainly go into the Resilio Sync GUI on that computer and then change the name there.

[harryPotter]

3 hours ago, Moe said:

You can't change the username. For that to have to reinstall Sync completely. This does not mean that you have to transfer all data again; it just needs to be re-indexed on each peer you reinstall.

If you just want to rename the PC of a user you can most certainly go into the Resilio Sync GUI on that computer and then change the name there.

Thanks Moe!  Appreciate having someone knowledgeable about this product on the forums!  Yeah, I just need to change the username that appears in the peer group into  something more descriptive so I can track each machine.

So, honestly, I don't remember if ResilioSync offered to prompt me for a username when I first installed it (or first ran it) on each peer machine.  If it did prompt, then there is a UI failure during the setup process because the user should be alerted and told specifically that, "here is your chance to use a descriptive name for this machine, otherwise, we are going to choose a random alphanumeric name for it, capiche?!"

The client machines are Android devices.  Are you sure we won't have to download everything again, even on Android?  The size of the synced folder is 176GB.

[Moe]

Sync most defenitely prompted you to enter a Username. On linux there are two prompts; one for admin GUI access (username and password that can be skipped though) and then there is the one for your Sync "ID" (username and fingerprint for identification).

I don't have an android phone but as far as I understand it, you sync data to your SD card, right? So the data is already on your phone.

Even in a fully functional Sync setup you can remove a share on your android phone, so that the data is still on the SD card and then later add the excat share again pointing to the directory it was before. Then it is re-indexing all files and folders and checks with other peers online if there has been a change.

This definitely works on Windows, macOS and Linux. iOS has a a different storage management than Android so for that username change on iOS you most certainly have to redownload everything to your phone. Android should be easier on this it feels like.

[Helen]

You can change the username by unlinking the current in My devices -> This device menu. See here

[Moe]

Well this can, depending on your setup, result in the same outcome: you have to re-share all folders and have it re-indexed. But Helens's version is probably less intrusive.