How to Install the Older Preview App from Snow Leopard in Mac OS X Lion
Preview in Mac OS X Lion brought with it several improvements and new features like digital signatures, but it also removed some very useful abilities like the file size estimator, Save As, and added the sometimes obnoxious Auto-Save.
If you miss the old version of Preview from Snow Leopard, and you either have a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard machine or backup handy, you can restore the older version of Preview (5.0.1) from Snow Leopard to run in OS X 10.7 Lion. Here is how to do this without replacing the OS X Lion version of the app (5.5.1), just in case you want to go revert to the newer version again.
- From Snow Leopard, make a copy of these folders and transfer them to the desktop of the Mac OS X Lion machine:
- From OS X Lion, rename the old Preview.app to something else like “PreviewSnow.app”
- Copy PreviewSnow.app to the /Applications/ folder in OS X Lion
- Copy “MeshKit.framework” to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ in OS X Lion and authenticate the change – this folder should not exist on the Lion machine already and you will not be overwriting anything else
/Applications/Preview.app
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MeshKit.framework/
Launch PreviewSnow.app from /Applications and it will run as usual, minus the frustrating Lion features and feature removals. If you want to set PreviewSnow.app as the new default app, right click on an image filetype, select “Get Info” and under the “Open With” menu find PreviewSnow.app and then click the “Change All” button underneath:
A true “Save As” is also back with this version, which is better than using the Export or Duplicate functions for many of us.
Excellent! I still have an image of my old Snow Leopard boot disk so this was very easy to do.
I was wondering if other apps could be copied over too, and found we can do the same thing with TextEdit, at this point it’s only a matter of copying over the same application bundle since it also requires MeshKit
http://www.formaceyesonly.com/2011/11/25/how-to-downgrade-lions-preview-and-textedit-to-snow-leopard-versions/
I haven’t tried others, but for me Preview and TextEdit are some of the more frustrating updates in Lion. Now if only Safari would stop that auto-refreshing crap I could be a happy camper.
Now if we could only rip it off the Snow Leopard disk and install it would be that much handier. Is there anyway of doing it?
Yes, get Pacifist and you can extract and install things from pkg files and the boot disks.
Oh man! Quicktime to pct to jpg… back again! Sweet find!
I tried this tip and found that it kept defaulting to the Lion version of Preview. When I checked permissions, it indicated that Preview was owned by the system file and even when I changed the permissions, was still the default app. It would not allow me to remove System from the permissions list nor would it allow me to add Administrators to the list.
It appears on my machine, that all the applications installed with Lion are listed as System files and the system applications are the default application and it can’t be changed.
Any suggestions, anyone?
You can use the Terminal command:
xattr /Applications/Preview.app
to manipulate OS X extended file attributes. See also:
ls -l@
and
man xattr
for more information.
Thanks for the tip.
I managed to get Preview 5.0.1 as the default by using AppZapper to delete Preview and all it’s associated plists, etc., after I copied it to an external drive.
I copied the Snow Leopard version to my applications folder as “PreviewSnow”, and set it as the default and then copied Preview (Lion) back to my applications in the off chance I might need it for something. That process changed the attributes so that System no longer owned it.
Thank you so much!!! I used CleanMyMac to do the same thing after I read your post. Yaaaay!
::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As:: ::Save As::
Thank you all!!
Thanks for this tip – frustrated by the lack of ‘save as’ only yesterday, so very timely….
Any thoughts on how to do this with iCal? I tried installing just off the Snow Leopard DVD but it wouldn’t run under Lion. I know that BusyCal would solve my problems with Lion iCal, but I hate to spend $40 for features that were available under Snow Leopard.
re the SAVE AS “missing” in Lion … Is having to do the following not quick enough or elegant enough?
(Have the file open on screen)…
FILE–>DUPLICATE
When new file appears on screen with COPY at end of file name
FILE–>SAVE…
Then rename the file and destination.
Perhaps a keyboard shortcut for the DUPLICATE command would be handy. The Cmd+S keyboard shortcut will work as as “SAVE AS…” after the file has been Duplicated.
No, not quick enough.
[...] without running through the OS installation itself. This would let you use our recent tip to run the old version of Preview in OS X Lion, despite not having Snow Leopard actually installed [...]
You can also use the combo client update and open it with Pacifist.
I’m currently making a PKG with those folders for SL Preview app.
HEEELPPP!!! anyone know the meshkit.framework equivalent folder in 10.5.8 (Leopard)? or anyone know how to transfer the 10.5.8 (leopard) version of Preview.app to Lion? there is no meshkit.framework folder in Leopard.
Mahalo Nui!!!
Thanks for this work around.
ahhhh… much better, thanks!!
Unfortunately, this tip has limited results….
I used Preview to change and attach color sync profile to my photo files. Preview SL could do it without changing the file itself, beside the obvious CS profile change.
Lion Preview will do it only using the Export command and doing so will change the exif.
Restoring PreviewSL does not help. Assigned CS Profile will not be preserved and upon saving it will revert to original profile. Save As will change the file….
It looks like something is missing and has to be restored in addition to two folders mentioned in the article.