A: (Click here for Windows instructions.)
May 03, 2019 In the Get Info window of the file, expand the Open With section. Under it, you will see a dropdown with the default app for opening that particular type of file selected. Open this dropdown and select the app you want to open this particular file with. That’s all you need to do. DO NOT click the ‘Change all’ button. Change the application in the “Open with:” drop down. If you just want to change it for just this file, then stop here. If you just want to change it for just this file, then stop here.
Mac OS X makes it easy to change file associations, which determine what programs are used to open various file types. You can change the setting for individual files or for all files of a specific file type.
Individual Files
To change what program opens a specific file, you first need to open the file's information window. This can be done by selecting the file and clicking 'Get Info' from the File menu. Or you can simply right-click (Control-click for single button mouse users) on the file and select 'Get Info' from the contextual menu that pops up. The information window should look something like image below:
Notice the section in the middle of the window that says 'Open with.' When you click the drop-down menu, it will show you a list of applications that can open the selected file type. If the file is a Microsoft Word document, the list of programs may look something like this:
Select the program that you would like to open the file and close the information window. When you double-click the document, it will open using the program you selected.
All Files
You can also change what program opens all documents of a certain file type. For example, you may want all Microsoft Word documents to open in AppleWorks. To do this, first select AppleWorks 6 in the drop-down menu, as in the example above. Then, before closing the window, click the button. You will be prompted to confirm the change with an alert window:
Mac Os Changing Default Application To Open For A File Type Pdf
Click and all files with a .DOC extension will now open in AppleWorks. Of course, you can change the file associations back to Microsoft Word by selecting Word from the drop-down menu and repeating the same steps.
Updated: June 14, 2011
Sometimes, if your Mac doesn’t recognize a file type as something that one of its programs can handle, or if you want a specific file type to always open in a specific program, Mac OS X Lion might need a little help from you. Mac OS X Lion lets you specify the application in which you want to open a document in the future when you double-click it. Suppose that you want all .tif graphic files that usually open in Preview to open instead in Pixelmator, a more capable third-party program
More than that, you can specify that you want all documents of that type to open with the specified application. “Where is this magic bullet hidden?” you ask. Right there in the file’s Info window.
Macos Changing Default Application To Open For A File Types
Here’s how you do it:
Macos Change Default App For File Type
Click one of the files in the Finder.
Choose File→Get Info (Command+I).
In the Info window, click the gray triangle to disclose the Open With pane.
From the pop-up menu, choose an application that Mac OS X believes will open this document type.
(Optional) If you click the Change All button at the bottom of the Open With pane, you make Pixelmator the new default application for all .tif files that would otherwise be opened in Preview.
Notice the handy alert that appears when you click the Change All button and how nicely it explains what will happen if you click Continue.