How To Set the Default App For Opening Files On a Mac

Simply opening a file will launch the default app for that file. But you can indicate that you wish to open a different app in several ways. You can also set the default app for that file or for all files of the same type.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can choose which application is used to open up a document and how to set the default for that file type. 
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So often when we want to open up a document we simply find it in the Finder, double click it, and it will open up in its default app. But how does it know which app to use to open up the file and how can you choose another one? For instance, here I have four files. This one here is an image. If I were to doubler click it it would automatically open up in the Preview app. But what if I wanted it to open up in a different app. After all, I have many apps on my Mac that can handle image files. 
One way to open up a document in any app that can handle it is to simply open up the app first. So for instance I'll open up Pixelmator Pro here. I can go to File, Open and then choose the file I want to open. Here I am in my example Files folder. I could now select that file, open and now I've opened it up in Pixelmator even though it's not the default app and the one I get when I double click. 
Another way to do it would be to drag and drop it to the application. So let me open up a new Finder window. In that new window I'll go to the Application's folder. Here I'll find a variety of different apps. Like, for instance there's Affinity Photo. I can simply drag and drop this to Affinity Photo and it will launch Affinity Photo and open up the image in that app. Now to make this easier you can add the app to the Dock. So I can take Affinity Photo here. Drag it to the Dock. Add it in and now I can use that as the place to drag the file. So I can drag this file down to the Dock. Drop onto Affinity Photo and it will open it up in that app. 
But there are more ways to do it. For instance you can Control click on the file or two finger click on a trackpad or right click on a mouse to bring up the Context Menu. Then you get an Open command. Open works just like double clicking the file. You can also go to File and Open or Command O to do that. But below Open is Open With. Then you'll get a list of all of these different apps, starting with the default app at the top, but other apps that say they can handle this kind of file. Now what each app does with the file may be different. For instance here I see three browsers, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. If I open up the image in those I'm just going to be able to view the image. But if I opened it up in PhotoShop, Acorn, Pixelmator, or Affinity Photo then I'm going to be able to edit and manipulate the image. So I can select Acorn here and it will open it up in Acorn. This may be the quickest way to deal with it. After all, for something like an image you may want to open it up with different apps in different situations all the time. 
The default isn't as important because the situation you're in is going to determine which app you want to use. So bringing up the Context Menu, using Open With, is the best way to do it. 
But let's say I did want to change the default app for opening this kind of file. If I hold down the Option key, with this menu open, notice Open With changes to Always Open With. Then I can select an application, like Pixelmator, and now it opens that up in Pixelmator as before. The difference is that if I look again at this file, under Open With, you can see Pixelmator is now the default. If I just double click it it will actually launch Pixelmator and open it up. To switch back I would simply bring up the Context Menu again, go to Open With, hold down the Option key and then choose the app that I want to use as the default. So in this case Preview. Which still shows as the default cause it is the System default for opening this kind of file. Now I've reset it.
So let's say I have this set to Always Open in Pixelmator Pro. Notice here I have a file with the same extension. But if I double click that that opens in Preview. Changing the default for a file only changes it for that one file. It doesn't change it for other files of the same type. To change it for all files of the same type select one of those files. Go to File, Get Info or use Command I. Then look for Open With and here you'll see a similar list that we saw in the Context Menu. You have the default at the top and other apps here. You can then select the one you want to use. Let's try Acorn here. Then that will change it for that one file. But you also have a Change All button. Click that Change All button and you're prompted to Confirm. Now when I look for this file I can see the default is Acorn. But also for this file it is changed as well. Notice now the System default, with the little default in parentheses there, is changed also. It's no longer Preview, although Preview is in the list. 
So you can do similar things for other kinds of files. For instance here's a .mov file. If I Control click on that I can see QuickTime Player is the default. But I have the third party VLC player installed. When you install VLC it's kind of notorious for switching your System default to VLC. Then to get back to QuickTime Player you would actually have to select a file by type, use Command I, change the Open With to QuickTime Player and click Change All. Here I am in a Microsoft Word file. Now I may not want these to be opened by Word by default. Or maybe I don't even have Word installed. If I look here you can see I do have Word installed and it says it's the default. But both Pages and TextEdit can open Word documents. You may want to decide which one of those handles documents. If you get occasional Microsoft Word documents from colleagues at work and you just need to read the text that is in there you might want to use the lightweight TextEdit as the default. But if you need to work with those files and you don't have Microsoft Word you might want to set it as Pages or perhaps you have something else, like Open Office or Libre Office, installed on your Mac and you can set that as the default to handle those Word documents.
So a few other things. Notice if I go to the Context Menu and use Open With these are all suggestions of apps that say they can handle this kind of file. But notice at the bottom it says Other. Select that and then you're prompted to choose any application. It starts in the Applications Folder but you can go anywhere on your hard drive now and select an application and say, yes I do want to open this kind of file with this app. At the bottom here you can enable Recommended Applications or All Applications and you could see now All can be selected. Here you can also check Always Open With to set that file's default app. If you don't see those there you have to click this Options button to reveal or hide those. You have the same thing available when you have Command I. You have this list here but at the bottom of the list you have Other and you can choose From Any App.
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Comments: 4 Responses to “How To Set the Default App For Opening Files On a Mac”

Milo

3 years ago

Have you had problems with doing this on Big Sur? I have an M1 Air and the change doesn’t seem to take. So far have noticed it with MP3 and Zip apps.

Gary Rosenzweig

Milo: I am using Big Sur in this video.

James Coons

2 years ago

I get an error message when attempting to do this on Big Sur. It seems to be broken

James: What's the error message? What type of file are you trying it on, and which app are you setting it to?

Comments Closed.

How To Set the Default App For Opening Files On a Mac

Comments: 4 Responses to “How To Set the Default App For Opening Files On a Mac”

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