Whenever you double click on any file on your Mac within the Finder, the operating system will by default find the most suitable app to open it and reveal its contents. Most of the time everything will work without issues, but there are other times when your Mac will either not use the ideal app to open a file or will simply not be able to find a suitable app at all.
4) If your application is already in the box then it is the default application for opening that kind of file and you don't need to do anything more. Close the get info window. 5) If the application showing in the menu is not the one with which you wish to open the file then select a new application. I have to set the default telephone app on 10 iMacs and don't want to register 10 iCloud-accounts just to do the facetime login and being able to open the preferences there. Watch espn app mac. That's ridiculous. Installed RCDefaultApp and set the default telephone app there but the phone-icon in contacts application is still greyed-out.
If you have experienced this issue before and would like to know how to solve it, read along. What causes this issue most of the time is that you might have two or more apps that support the type of file that you want to open.
For Example:
Some very frequent culprits of this are archiving apps like Winrar or UnRarX, both of which support very similar file types. Another common occurrence is mix-ups between video players like VLC and Quicktime, with the latter opening files only supported by the former.
What you need to do in order to solve this issue is to change the default app for opening certain types of files, or at least choose a different app from the available ones to open a particular file. Follow these steps to learn how to do just that.
Open File with Different Program
Step 1: First, start by locating the file you want to open within the Finder.
Step 2: If you want to open the file with a different app than the one set by default only once, then all you have to do is right-click on the file, click on the Open With option and then select the app you want to use from the list of available programs.
Set Default Program for Specific File Types
Step 1: To set a different default app for all files of a certain type, you can also start by locating a file of that type first and then by right-clicking on it. This time though, locate the Get Info option and click on it.
Step 2: This will display the information panel for that particular file. On it, look for the Open with: section located almost at the bottom of the window. If it is not open, click on the small triangle until the information is displayed just like on the screenshot below.
Step 3: There, you will see a dropdown menu that will display all of the apps that support the file and are capable of opening it. Click on this menu and then select the application that you want to use to open that file type from then on.
If you don’t find the app you are looking for on the list, simply click on Other… to look for one within the Applications folder. How to uninstall apps on macos catalina.
Step 4: Once you select the application you want, click on the Change All… button to apply the changes. Then, confirm your selection on the next window.
Once you are done, just close the information panel and you will be set to go. From now on, every time you open any file of that type, it will open in the new application you selected.
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Did You Know
Nokia was founded in 1865 and its primary business was making paper.
Some common “I’d rather use this App when I open this kind of file” scenarios are:
Open PDF files with Preview instead of Adobe Acrobat
Open .txt files in an App other than Notepad
Open media files (MP3, MP4, AVI etc.) in VLC instead of iTunes or Quicktime
The process to switch default Apps is super-fast and easy to do, and easy to change again later any time you want.
Alternative To Default Mac Apps
For the sake of this guide we’re going to switch .M3U files (commonly used as playlists) from opening in iTunes to the media player VLC. That doesn’t mean you need to do the same, this process is the identical no matter what type of file you’re dealing with.
Locate a file of the type you want to switch. Right-click the file (or hold down the control button on your keyboard and then click on the file) and select Get Info from the context menu.
A window will appear with all kinds of info about that file. Locate the Open with: section and expand it (if necessary) by clicking the small ‘triangle’ icon. Click the ‘pull-down’ menu to open it.
If the App you want to open this type of file with from now on is listed, select it. Congrats, you also get to skip down to step #7. If the App you want to open this file with is not listed – don’t worry, just click the Other… item from the menu.
A pop-up window will appear allowing you to pick the program you want to open this type of file with. Find the App by first selecting Applications and then scroll through the list. When you find the App, select it by clicking on it once. Now skip down to step #6. If the App you want to use to open the file with is ‘greyed out’ and you can’t select it – no problem.
Click the Enable: menu and select All Applications. Now the App you want to select will not be greyed out.
Make sure that the Always Open With box is checked, and then click the Add button.
Almost done! Click the Change All… button.
You’ll be prompted for confirmation – click Continue.
Now just make sure that the App you want to use is the one listed as the (default) in the Open with: section.
Done! Repeat these steps for other file type associations you want to make.