Tidy vs NameQuick: which one should you buy?

Both name your files by reading what is inside them. One asks you to bring a model; the other uses the one already in your Mac.

Written by the developer of Tidy — bias disclosed. Verified on their own site, 5 September 2026.

The 20-second verdict: If you work on Windows too, or you want a large cloud model reasoning over complicated documents and you are comfortable holding an API key, NameQuick is the more powerful tool. If you want to install one app and have it read your screenshots and scans with no key, no account and no monthly bill, that is what Tidy is.

Side by side

What	Tidy	NameQuick
Price	One payment, lifetime updates	$69 once (self-managed, one device) or $12–$99 / month
What you must bring	Nothing. macOS already has the text recognition	Your own API key, or a local model you install (Ollama, LM Studio, MLX)
Where documents are read	On your Mac, always	Their cloud by default (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, OpenRouter) — or local, if you set it up
Cost per file	None	Every rename costs the provider money in cloud mode
Platforms	macOS 14+	macOS and Windows
Free trial	None — 14-day money-back guarantee instead	50 renames, no card; 14 days / 250 renames on the cloud plan
Reads scanned PDFs with no text layer	Yes, on-device OCR	Yes, via OCR
Search inside your files	Yes — global panel, ⌥Space, including scans	Not its purpose
Moves and files, not just renames	Yes — rules, subfolders, group by month	Yes — watch folders and rules
Deletes anything	Never. Trash only, one-click undo of a whole run	Renames and files; no deletion advertised
Interface languages	English · Spanish · German · Portuguese · French	English and German

Their figures come from namequick.app as published on 5 September 2026. Ours can be checked by turning off your Wi-Fi and using the app.

Where NameQuick genuinely wins

Windows. Tidy is a macOS app and will stay one. If half your work is on a PC, this is the end of the discussion.
A big model understands a hard document better. A large cloud model can make sense of a messy multi-page contract in ways a small on-device one cannot. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
You can try it for free. 50 renames with no card is a fair offer, and Tidy has nothing like it.

If you already pay for an API key and you want the smartest possible naming, buy NameQuick. I mean that.

Where Tidy wins

It works the minute you open it. No key to paste, no model to install, no provider to choose. The text recognition is the one Apple ships with macOS.
Nothing leaves your Mac, and you can prove it. Turn off the Wi-Fi and keep working. There is no server, so there is nothing to keep, nothing to retain for 30 days, and nothing to breach.
No cost per file. Rename four files or forty thousand; the price does not move, because reading them costs me nothing.
It searches inside them afterwards. One keystroke from any app, including scanned PDFs where Spotlight finds nothing.
It never deletes. Everything goes to the Trash, the whole plan is shown before anything moves, and one click undoes a run.

Frequently asked

Is NameQuick's one-time licence really one payment?

Yes, $69 for a lifetime licence on one device — but in that mode the app needs your own API key, which you pay for separately, or a local model you install yourself. The alternative is their monthly plan.

Does Tidy send my documents anywhere?

No. There is no server. The text recognition and the naming both run on your Mac, and you can verify it by turning off your internet connection and carrying on.

Can Tidy name a complicated multi-page contract as well as a cloud model?

No. A large model reasons better over difficult documents. Tidy's approach is different on purpose: the OCR reads what is physically on the page, and the model only chooses which of those things becomes the name, so it cannot invent one.

Which one for scanned paperwork?

Both read scans. Tidy also lets you search inside them later, which is usually the actual problem: not naming the scan, but finding it two years on.

Try the quiet one

Tidy names your files by reading what is inside them, on your Mac, with nothing to configure and no key to paste.

Get Tidy

One-time payment · 14-day guarantee · macOS 14+, Apple Silicon & Intel

Prices and features checked on namequick.app on 5 September 2026 and quoted as published. NameQuick is a trademark of its owner. If anything here is out of date or unfair, write to hola@tidymacapp.com and I will correct it — that has happened before and I did.

The other comparisons: Tidy vs Hazel · Tidy vs Zush · Tidy vs Keep It Shot · Tidy vs Sortio · Why these apps charge monthly