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Mac Os Default Program For Extensions

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Beginning in macOS 10.14.5, software signed with a new Developer ID certificate and all new or updated kernel extensions must be notarized to run. Beginning in macOS 10.15, all software built after June 1, 2019, and distributed with Developer ID must be notarized. Mac OS X Leopard will automatically open a certain file type using a program that it has been associated with. But what if you have installed a new program, say for example, QuickTime, and you want it to be the default program that opens all ‘.wmv' files instead of VLC; or if you have just installed Photoshop and you want that to be the default program to open all ‘.jpeg' files instead. How to use the window title bar in Mac OS X - Check the little hidden feature in Mac OS X 10.8. How to emulate older Mac OS on OS X - Try older Mac OS with Basilisk II emulator for OS X. Set default app for opening files with no extension on Mac - Set the default software for opening files without file extension with RCDefaultApp. Disk image files that are stored in the DMG file format and are appended with the.dmg extension are intended as virtual disks for Mac OS X platforms. These DMG files can be mounted unto a virtual drive or directly activated to launch the Apple Disk Utility program, in order to view and use the content of these.dmg files. Mac Software How to. While the likes of Mail, iTunes and Safari are set as the default applications on your Mac - meaning they launch automatically when you open an email, audio file or web.

Changing the default applications that opens when opening a file in Mac OS X is a definite must know, and can save you time as well as a headache.

Maybe you've downloaded a new app that you want to set as the default, or opening a picture could default to an app that takes a long time to load, such as Photoshop.

Change Default Application by Extension

For this example I'll change default video player from QuickTime to MPlayerX. Unfortunately there is no way to just set MPlayerX to just be the default player for all video files and their respective extensions. It has to be done, extension by extension.

First thing you're going to want to do is find a file that has the extension that you want to change the default application for.

Mac os default app

All you need to do to change the default application is:

  1. Right-click (control-click) on a file with the extension that you are wanting to change.
  2. Select 'Get Info'
  3. Located 'Open with:'
  4. Choose your desired default application.

Now a choice, do you want to change the file association for just this file, or do you want to change the file association for all files with this extensions?

  • To apply it across all files with that extension make sure you click 'Change All…'

Tips to make the process simpler

You may be thinking that the above is tedious, and truthfully it is. I'd like to see a better way of managing the default application, however until then here are some:

More Tips:

By default on Mac common filename extensions are hidden in Finder. To show all filename extensions:

  1. Open Finder
  2. From the menu bar select Finder -> Preferences
  3. Click the 'Advanced' tab
  4. Enable 'Show all filename extensions'

Even after you've changed the default application that opens you can still override the setting and choose another app.

  1. Right-click file
  2. Choose 'Open With'
  • This doesn't change the default.
  • Do you have duplicate entries? Remove Duplicate Open With (right-click) entries in OS X

Your desired app not listed?

  1. If your desired app isn't listed in the 'Get Info' window, then choose 'Other…'
  2. Navigate to the applications location (usually the Applications folder) and select it.
  3. Click Add.

Even More Tips:

Find a new (or better) application by file extension.

  1. Right-click file -> Get info -> and select 'Open with:'
  2. Select App Store
  • This will show application in the Mac App Store that can be used with that specific extension.
  • It's a great way to find new and sometimes better applications.

Not all applications require these methods.

  • Some apps are awesome enough to give you the choice of which extensions you want them to be associated with by default. If you want to set a new app to be the default, always check to preferences first.

Learn how to make Adobe Photoshop your default image viewer and editor for popular file formats like JPEG, PNG and TIFF, as well as Photoshop's own PSD format, in Mac OS X.

Even though every copy of Photoshop, whether it's a standalone version or part of a Creative Cloud subscription, includes a free and powerful file management program called Adobe Bridge, many Mac users still prefer the Finder for locating and opening their images.

While there's nothing technically wrong with that, there is one annoying problem; Mac OS X, at least by default, ignores Photoshop when we open images directly from within a Finder window. Instead, it prefers to open them in Apple's own Preview app with its basic and very limited set of image editing features. Since Photoshop is obviously our editor of choice, let's learn how to easily configure Mac OS X so that our images will automatically open for us in Photoshop every time.

Note that this tutorial is specifically for Mac users. For the PC version, see Make Photoshop Your Default Image Editor in Windows 10.

This is lesson 2 of 10 in Chapter 2 - Opening Images into Photoshop.

Turning On File Name Extensions

First, navigate to a folder on your Mac that contains one or more images. Here, I've opened a folder that's sitting on my Desktop. Inside the folder are four image files. Starting from the left, we have a PNG file, a JPEG file, a Photoshop PSD file, and a TIFF file. How do we know which file type we're looking at? We know because of the three letter extension at the end of each name:

A Finder window showing four image files.

If you're not seeing the extensions at the end of your file names, go up to the Finder menu in the top left of your screen and choose Preferences:

This opens the Finder Preferences dialog box. Click the Advanced tab at the top, then select Show all filename extensions by clicking inside its checkbox. Close the dialog box when you're done. You should now see the file extensions listed at the end of your file names:

Click the Advanced tab, then check 'Show all filename extensions'.

The Default Image Viewer

Let's try opening one of the images to see what happens. I'll double-click on my JPEG image ('fashion.jpg') to open it:

Opening a photo by double-clicking on its thumbnail.

Even though I have the latest version of Photoshop installed, and even though Photoshop just happens to be the world's most powerful image editor, Mac OS X completely ignores it and instead opens my photo in its own Preview app (fashion photo from Adobe Stock):

Preview has a few image editing features, but it's no Photoshop.

That's obviously not what I wanted so I'll close out of the Preview app by going up to the Preview menu at the top of the screen and choosing Quit Preview:

Making Photoshop The Default Image Viewer And Editor

So how do we tell Mac OS X to open this image in Photoshop instead of in Preview? And more importantly, how to we tell it to use Photoshop not just for this one image this one time but for every JPEG image we open in the future? It's actually very easy to do. First, Control-click on a JPEG image you want to open:

Control-clicking on the JPEG photo's thumbnail.

Then choose Get Info from the menu that appears:

Mac os default program for extensions free

All you need to do to change the default application is:

  1. Right-click (control-click) on a file with the extension that you are wanting to change.
  2. Select 'Get Info'
  3. Located 'Open with:'
  4. Choose your desired default application.

Now a choice, do you want to change the file association for just this file, or do you want to change the file association for all files with this extensions?

  • To apply it across all files with that extension make sure you click 'Change All…'

Tips to make the process simpler

You may be thinking that the above is tedious, and truthfully it is. I'd like to see a better way of managing the default application, however until then here are some:

More Tips:

By default on Mac common filename extensions are hidden in Finder. To show all filename extensions:

  1. Open Finder
  2. From the menu bar select Finder -> Preferences
  3. Click the 'Advanced' tab
  4. Enable 'Show all filename extensions'

Even after you've changed the default application that opens you can still override the setting and choose another app.

  1. Right-click file
  2. Choose 'Open With'
  • This doesn't change the default.
  • Do you have duplicate entries? Remove Duplicate Open With (right-click) entries in OS X

Your desired app not listed?

  1. If your desired app isn't listed in the 'Get Info' window, then choose 'Other…'
  2. Navigate to the applications location (usually the Applications folder) and select it.
  3. Click Add.

Even More Tips:

Find a new (or better) application by file extension.

  1. Right-click file -> Get info -> and select 'Open with:'
  2. Select App Store
  • This will show application in the Mac App Store that can be used with that specific extension.
  • It's a great way to find new and sometimes better applications.

Not all applications require these methods.

  • Some apps are awesome enough to give you the choice of which extensions you want them to be associated with by default. If you want to set a new app to be the default, always check to preferences first.

Learn how to make Adobe Photoshop your default image viewer and editor for popular file formats like JPEG, PNG and TIFF, as well as Photoshop's own PSD format, in Mac OS X.

Even though every copy of Photoshop, whether it's a standalone version or part of a Creative Cloud subscription, includes a free and powerful file management program called Adobe Bridge, many Mac users still prefer the Finder for locating and opening their images.

While there's nothing technically wrong with that, there is one annoying problem; Mac OS X, at least by default, ignores Photoshop when we open images directly from within a Finder window. Instead, it prefers to open them in Apple's own Preview app with its basic and very limited set of image editing features. Since Photoshop is obviously our editor of choice, let's learn how to easily configure Mac OS X so that our images will automatically open for us in Photoshop every time.

Note that this tutorial is specifically for Mac users. For the PC version, see Make Photoshop Your Default Image Editor in Windows 10.

This is lesson 2 of 10 in Chapter 2 - Opening Images into Photoshop.

Turning On File Name Extensions

First, navigate to a folder on your Mac that contains one or more images. Here, I've opened a folder that's sitting on my Desktop. Inside the folder are four image files. Starting from the left, we have a PNG file, a JPEG file, a Photoshop PSD file, and a TIFF file. How do we know which file type we're looking at? We know because of the three letter extension at the end of each name:

A Finder window showing four image files.

If you're not seeing the extensions at the end of your file names, go up to the Finder menu in the top left of your screen and choose Preferences:

This opens the Finder Preferences dialog box. Click the Advanced tab at the top, then select Show all filename extensions by clicking inside its checkbox. Close the dialog box when you're done. You should now see the file extensions listed at the end of your file names:

Click the Advanced tab, then check 'Show all filename extensions'.

The Default Image Viewer

Let's try opening one of the images to see what happens. I'll double-click on my JPEG image ('fashion.jpg') to open it:

Opening a photo by double-clicking on its thumbnail.

Even though I have the latest version of Photoshop installed, and even though Photoshop just happens to be the world's most powerful image editor, Mac OS X completely ignores it and instead opens my photo in its own Preview app (fashion photo from Adobe Stock):

Preview has a few image editing features, but it's no Photoshop.

That's obviously not what I wanted so I'll close out of the Preview app by going up to the Preview menu at the top of the screen and choosing Quit Preview:

Making Photoshop The Default Image Viewer And Editor

So how do we tell Mac OS X to open this image in Photoshop instead of in Preview? And more importantly, how to we tell it to use Photoshop not just for this one image this one time but for every JPEG image we open in the future? It's actually very easy to do. First, Control-click on a JPEG image you want to open:

Control-clicking on the JPEG photo's thumbnail.

Then choose Get Info from the menu that appears:

A long, narrow Info dialog box will open full of details about the image. Look for the section that says Open with. You may need to click the small arrow to the left of the section's name to twirl it open. This section tells us which program Mac OS X is currently using to open JPEG files. By default, it's set to Preview:

Preview is currently our default image editor.

Click on 'Preview.app' to open a list of other apps currently installed on your system and choose Adobe Photoshop from the list. If you have more than one version of Photoshop installed, choose the most recent version. Again, at the time I'm writing this, the most recent version is CC 2015.5:

There's just one step remaining. To set Photoshop as the new default app for opening all JPEG files, not just this one, click the Change All button:

Clicking 'Change All'.

You'll be asked if you're sure you want to open all JPEG files (that is, all files with a '.jpg' extension) with Photoshop. Click Continue to confirm it:

You can close out of the Info dialog box at this point, and that's all there is to it! Photoshop is now set to open all of your JPEG files. I'll double-click once again on my JPEG image in the Finder window:

Opening the same photo again.

And sure enough, instead of opening in the Preview app as it did before, this time the photo opens for me in my latest version of Photoshop:

Photoshop is now my default image editor for JPEG files.

PNG Files

So far, so good. We've set Photoshop as the default app for opening JPEG files. But we still need to set Photoshop as the default app for opening the other file types as well, so let's run through the steps quickly. I'll return to my Finder window, then I'll Control-click on my PNG file ('butterfly.png') and choose Get Info from the menu:

Control-clicking on the PNG file and choosing 'Get Info'.

This opens the Info dialog box where we see that Preview, not Photoshop, is currently set as the default app for opening PNG files:

I'll click on 'Preview.app' and select my latest version of Photoshop from the list. Then, to set Photoshop as the default app for all PNG files, I'll click Change All:

Changing 'Open with' to Photoshop, then clicking 'Change All'.

I'll confirm that I want all PNG files to open in Photoshop by clicking Continue:

Then I'll close out of the Info dialog box. And now, when I open my PNG file from my Finder window by double-clicking on its thumbnail, the image opens in Photoshop, as will all PNG files from now on (butterfly design from Adobe Stock):

Change The Default Application A File Opens With On Your Mac ..

The PNG file opens in Photoshop. Image credit: Adobe Stock.

TIFF Files

Malayalam christian songs free download. Let's do the same thing for TIFF files. I'll return once again to my Finder window where I'll Control-click on my TIFF image ('portrait.tif'). Then, I'll choose Get Info from the menu:

Control-clicking on the TIFF file and choosing 'Get Info'.

In the Info dialog box, we see that just like with the JPEG and PNG files, Mac OS X is using Preview to open TIFF files. It's possible that your system may have a different app selected so don't worry if it does. All that matters is that we change it to Photoshop:

I'll once again click on 'Preview.app' and select my latest version of Photoshop from the list. Then I'll make the change apply to all TIFF files by clicking Change All:

Changing 'Open with' to Photoshop, then clicking 'Change All', this time for TIFF files.

I'll click Continue to confirm the change:

Then I'll close out of the Info dialog box. And now when I double-click on my TIFF file to open it in the Finder window, we see that it opens automatically in Photoshop (portrait photo from Adobe Stock):

The TIFF file opens in Photoshop. Image credit: Adobe Stock.

PSD Files

Finally, while Mac OS X will usually set Photoshop as the default app for opening PSD files (since PSD is Photoshop's native file format), it still never hurts to check. Plus, if you have multiple versions of Photoshop installed on your computer, it's worth making sure that your PSD files will open in the newest version, as we're about to see.

I'll return one last time to my Finder window where I'll Control-click on my PSD file ('performer.psd') and choose Get Info:

Control-clicking on the PSD file and choosing 'Get Info'.

In the Info dialog box, we see that sure enough, Mac OS X is using Photoshop to open PSD files. But, there's a problem. I still have older versions of Photoshop installed on my system, and Mac OS X has chosen one of the older versions, not the newest version. Here we see that it's set to use Photoshop CC 2014, while the newest version (at the time I'm writing this) is CC 2015.5:

Photoshop is set to open PSD files, but it's the wrong version of Photoshop.

I'll click on 'Adobe Photoshop CC 2014.app' and choose the latest version of Photoshop from the list:

Then, as I've done with the other file types, I'll make the change apply to all PSD files by clicking Change All:

Clicking 'Change All'.

Pdfwriter ghostscript for mac. I'll click Continue to confirm the change:

Then I'll close out of the Info dialog box. And now when I double-click on my PSD file in the Finder window, it opens automatically in my latest version of Photoshop (performer photo from Adobe Stock):

The PSD file opens in Photoshop. Image credit: Adobe Stock.

Where to go next..

And there we have it! That's how to make Photoshop your default image editor in Mac OS X! If you're also a Windows user, learn how to make Photoshop your default image editor in Windows 10.

In the next lesson in this chapter, we'll learn how to create a new document in Photoshop using the redesigned New Document dialog box!

Mac Os Default Applications

Or check out any of the other lessons in this chapter:

  • 02. Make Photoshop your default image editor in Mac OS X

For more chapters and for our latest tutorials, visit our Photoshop Basics section!

MacOS: How To Change The Default App For A File | Macworld

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