Change File Associations in Mac OS X
Customize, How to, Mac OS X, Tips & Tricks - October 25th, 2009 - 7 Comments
It really drives me nuts that files of the same kind but different type open different apps, I want to open all my images in Preview and all my video files in VLC. You can make Mac OS X open every file of a certain type with a certain application by changing the file association from the Finder. Here’s how to change the file type association in Mac OS X so that you can set file kinds to open all in one application.
* Find the file type(s) that you want to change the application to open with
* Get Info about a file that is of that file type, say a .mov
* Click the ‘Open With’ arrow to expand an application list
* Choose the application you want all files of this type to open with (in this example we’ll use VLC to open all .mov files)
* Click “Change All” and then “Continue” when the confirmation dialog appears
Now all of the files of that type will open in the application you specified. You can do this with any file type to keep things consistent.
I find this particularly useful after you have installed a new app that tries to take control over certain related file types, for example Adobe Acrobat Reader will hijack PDF’s from Preview and FlipForMac will do the same with WMV’s when I want to use VLC for all my video needs. There’s countless reasons to change file associations and the apps that are launched with them, so now you know how!
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RCDefaultApp preference pane makes things a lot easier…
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/
@Kevin – Great tip! Antoher OSX Must have added to my list!
Thanks a lot! QuickTime can’t use AVI files without help, but for some reason avi files had qt associated by default. Now I can use my favorite, mplayer osx extended, with just one click.