Duplicate programs listed in "Open With" menu

Whenever I control-click a file and want to select "Open With", there are duplicate programs listed. For example, if I want to open an AIFF file, QuickTime 7.6.2 shows up twice in the list along with iTunes, WaveBurner (a Logic Pro program) and other programs all showing up twice. Even another version of QuickTime (6.0.3) is listed.
Anyone else have ing this problem? Anyone know how to fix it? Thanks

Hi, this should cure it...
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, then...
Resetting Launch Services...
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html
Reboot.

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Duplicate apps in the "Open with-" menu

Hi, I have this small and annoying problem... Randomly, some programs seem to duplicate themselves in my "Open with..." menu.
For example, if I try to open a JPEG, Firefox will show this behavior. Any idea?

Do you have another copy of Firefox floating around on a mounted volume or in the Downloads folder?
I don't think it is Launch Services database problem since all apps are not duplicated.

Why are there duplicate results in the Open With menu?

I own an iMac with the latest version of OSX (I forget what it is). As you can see in this image, I am going to open an image using the Open With menu, and there are a lot of repeats. In addition to the repeats, some apps show up that no longer exist and some apps don't show up that still do exist. For example, I no longer have RockMelt on my operating system. I also don't have the version of Pixelmator listed: I trashed that version and installed a different version, but when I click on Pixelmator in the menu, it reverts to Preview because that version of Pixelmator no longer exists. This is a minor issue but it is really bothering me because whenever I want to open Pixelmator, I have to go through the whole process of clicking Other and browsing my applications folders to get to it. Any help would be EXTREMELY appreciated and I would reward you with imaginary cookies (Yum!).
Seriously though, I need help.

Boot in safe mode. This will cause certain caches maintained by the system to be rebuilt.
Safe mode is much slower to boot than normal.
When the login screen appears, reboot as usual (not in safe mode) and test. There's no need to log in while in safe mode.
Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. In that case, ask for instructions.

Can you add Programs to Open With Menu

Is there a way to add programs to the Open With Menu. For example, when you right click on a file you can choose to open it with the default application by selecting Open, or choose other programs to open it with by selecting Open With. Only a few of the programs that can open the files are listed. Is there a way to add programs that I use to list in that list. Right now, everytime I want to open something in a program that is not listed I have to go to Other... and find it in the Application folder. Which is not too convenient. Many programs that I use to open files are not listed for many types of file types, I open them frequently using the Open... window, and I was hoping that Mac would learn to add them, but it did not.
For example, I have VMWare with Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 in it, my default application for WORD documents is Word for Mac 2011, but occasionally I need to open it in Word 2010 in Windows (Certain features that are missing in Mac Word), and I have to browse to fin the Word 2010 Application from the Application Folder. Another example is a program (from the App Store) called ResizeIt (which resizes photos), I have to browse for it everytime even though it is an application just for images.
So, is there a way to edit the Open With Menu for specific file types to include these programs that I use, or do I have to keep browsing to the Application folder and finding it there?
Thank you in advance!!
David

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/15030/how-can-i-add-a-new-application-t o-the-open-with-menu
No answer yet, but this group may come up with an answer for you guys

Open with menu duplicates. osx 10.8.1

It shows duplicates of VLC in the open with menu when I go to open a movie file. I am running osx mountain lion 10.8.1. How do I remove duplicates or fix the open with menu?

If you are nervous about using Terminal forcommand a you may understand, not I concur with Bjorn. It is a means of resetting the menu.
Resetting the 'Open With' menu will remove duplicates and ghost applications (ones you have deleted) from the list. You reset the 'Open With' menu by rebuilding the Launch Services database your Mac maintains. There are multiple ways to rebuild the Launch Services database, including third-party system utilities like Cocktail and Onxy.
If you don't own a system utility that can rebuild the Launch Services database, don't worry; you can perform the rebuild yourself using the Terminal command set outlined in Bjorn's post..

Bloated "OPEN WITH" Menu -- Fix?

Slowly my "OPEN WITH" menu as turned into a overfilled disaster as *old versions* of apps, and sometimes even apps that are irrelevant to the file type.
Screenshot
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/48/picture3pn2.gif
How do I remove programs from the "Open With" menu?
Mitch

Open the Terminal application in the Utilities folder. Paste the following command line in its entirety immediately after the command line prompt, then press return:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/L aunchServices.framework/Versions/Current/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain system -domain local -domain user
When the prompt returns quit Terminal.

Clean up Finder contextual "Open With" menu list

This is an annoying 'feature' of the Finder in OS X. As you install/upgrade applications the contextual menu "Open With" gets bloated with multiple programs including programs you've deleted, plus multiple versions of programs you've upgraded. For example for JPEGs I have three entries for ImageWell.
[One of the tips I found|http://the-fergusons.net/2007/05/01/clean-up-the-mac-os-x-contextual-open -with-menu> seaching doesn't work because the folder structure in 10.5.x is now different.
Also [this method|http://macapper.com/2007/10/08/tutorial-clear-the-finders-open-with-menu > of deleting plist file doesn't work properly.
Anyone know how to:
a) Clean up the list of shown apps fully
b) Optionally restrict the list to applications shown to only those which you wish to have come up. For example don't show Apple Pages for .TXT files only TextEdit and TextMate.

FromOZ wrote:
[One of the tips I found|http://the-fergusons.net/2007/05/01/clean-up-the-mac-os-x-contextual-open-with-m enu> seaching doesn't work because the folder structure in 10.5.x is now different.
You can adjust it to Leopard's structure using the 'locate lsregister' command in Terminal. This yielded...
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister
... on my system... I then appended the options as per the tip you linked and it worked...

Seeing Double! Double Programs on Open With Menu!

Ok, when I CTRL + CLick on a program and hit Open With... it has the same program listed twice! How do I Get rid of it?

I tried one of the suggested Terminal scripts and it worked perfectly! Some had reported the 'generic' icon problem, but that was always fixed with a reboot. I had no such problems and the duplicates were erased in both the 'control-click' area and the Get Info selections. Not even a log out required with the following Terminal commands, at least for me.
NOTE: Copy and paste the following into a text editor and remove the "REMOVE" before pasting into Terminal:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/REMOVE
Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/REMOVE
Support/lsregister -kill -r -f -domain local -domain system -domain user "/Applications"
Note that the command basically tells the System to stop updating the cache and rebuilt it. This takes a few seconds ( about 45 on my set up ). Just be patient and wait for the input cursor to reappear.
Thanks for the OSXHints link! Merry Christmas, just hope you can now "Open with fingers/hands" come the 25th!
Message was edited by: xairbusdriver
Message was edited by: xairbusdriver

Help. Need to remove one of the listed QuickTimes from the "open with" menu

When I bring up the 'Open with' menu on an audio file I have QuickTime Player (7.3.1) and just below that I have QuickTime Player (7.2.1). I would like to remove the 7.2.1 listing from this menu. There is on one version on my computer (7.3.1). The last update must have placed the newer listing in this menu and left the older listing. Is there a way to remove the older listing from the open with menu?

Did you ever do an archival and install of your OS? If so, you have what is called previous system fold on your main hard drive. This is where you can find the player to the version. If not I guess what happen to you is strange...mmm... And I guess it could happen.

Duplicate Entries on "Open With" Menu.

The subject pretty much explains the problem.
I haven't made any major changes to my system, but I recently noticed that when I right click (2 button mouse) on something and go to the Open With menu, I now have duplicate entries.
IE: Adobe Image Ready
Adobe Image Ready
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
I think you get the point.
This seems to only be when I do this to images.
Any Ideas.
Thanks
Steve Cohen

That's handled by LaunchServices and sounds like a corrupt database. See http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html and
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486 for details on how to rebuild it
Message was edited by: baltwo

Open With Menu Lists Applications 5 times

So my open with menu seems to list applications more than once, for instance it reads
audacity
audacity
audacity
quicktime
quicktime
quicktime
real player
real player
real player....
I am installing leopard tomorrow (migration assistant install). Will that fix the problem? I would rather fix it before, how could I do that?

Look at this post to see how to fix it. Better to do it before applying an update.

How do I remove apps from the "open with" menu in Mountain Lion?

If I right-click a document in Finder, I get a contextual menu offering all of the potential applications with which I might open that document. My problem is that some of those applications are no longer operational and I want them to be removed from the menu. How can I do that?

I'm not sure how the order is determined. Clearly, the first level sort is ascending by application name these days (since Lion, I think), but it seems to be random after that. It's not by version, though that would be convenient.
Also, I notice that on my relatively clean Mountain Lion system I sometimes get duplicate entries in the "open with" list that cannot be explained by duplicate copies of the application. On a text file, I get two each of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Equation Editor, Evernote, and Xcode; none of these is duplicated on this system. I get only one entry each for the Notepad stub application, a few Adobe apps, TextWrangler, Safari, Numbers, Pages, and several others.
Where there are duplicated entries, it doesn't seem to matter which one I select; I get the same instance of the program no matter which I select. I take this to mean that one is an alias for the other.
That's my mystery and not necessarily yours. Are your "unhelpful but working stub applications" also duplicates?

Same application showing multiple times (multiple versions?) in Open With menu

Hello, this has been bugging me for a while, and I hope someone has a clue as to why it is this way.
I know VLC is not Apple software, but my question is not about the player but the Open With menu/window.
As you can see in the photo, when I choose a file to Open With a series of applications, I get more "versions" of VLC I don't know why only VLC and not the others.
I have the 2.0.6 version if it can be of any help, and before my latest update I only had 3 in that menu, now I have 4 VLC's so to speak.
Even before that, before previous updates, I had 2 VLC's in the Open With menu.
It looks like with every update I get some sort of duplicate, in this menu...I don't know why and why only with VLC.
I do not have multiple copies of the program, nor multiple versions.
There is just one and that is the latest version, 'cause older ones get automatically replaced in the Applications folder once the new one is installed.
Why do I only see 1 VLC in the Applications folder, Launchpad, and anywhere else, but I see multiple ones in the Open With menu?
Anyone have an idea?
Should I delete something somewhere maybe leftovers of previous versions or something?
I don't want a huge list, at some point.
Thank you!

You need to rebuild your launch services database.
Open a terminal window (it's in utilities).
Copy and paste this line in terminal:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
and hit return.
Then relaunch Finder (control-option-click the Finder icon in the dock).

I can't select Photoshop CC 2014 when using the "Open with" menu in Windows 7

I have recently installed CC 2014, and uninstalled my CC version. When I go to a jpeg, or any image file in windows explorer, I right-click and "open with" and it isn't listed on my program list to open the file with. I click on "browse programs", find the exe file in adobe-photoshop cc2014 folder and click OK, and it just goes back to the open with menu with no option for photoshop.
Any ideas on how I can get it on that list, so I can open these files from the file location, instead of opening up photoshop and then searching for the file location within photoshop?
Also, I don't have any problems opening up the pictures from within photoshop, just within windows explorer.

I'm having a similar problem, but only with jpg's. I have PS CS6, CC, and CC 2014. Other image file formats function normally with regard to the "open with" list. PS CC 2014 appears on the list. But with jpg's only PS CC appears on the "open with" list and 2014 can't be added by the browsing for it.
The curious thing is that if I have any of the three versions of Photoshop open, click on Photoshop CC in the "open with" list, the image opens in whatever version is already open on my computer. This is true of all image formats. No matter which version I pick from the "open with" list it opens in the currently running program. I use only the latest version so keeping it open all the time is an easy work around. I won't uninstall any of the earlier versions lest more file association quirks result. it would be nice to have this matter fixed.

Help. Need to remove item from the "open with" menu

Does anyone know how I can remove an item from the "open with" menu?

You could try removing the quicktime .pkg files from the receipts folder in the root library.
The system has to go somewhere to determine eligible applications it can use to open a file.
Each application would contain its base settings in its receipts file.
Once you delete the receipt you should delete the application and reinstall it.
The reinstall will write a new receipts file.
The receipts file is used by your system when it repairs disk permissions.
The system does not just add a setting.
For example if you take a .png file and click on it and look at what can open it you may get a long list.
If you choose "other" from the get info "open with" menu and have acrobat reader installed in applications, it will show as an application you can choose.
That application, however, is not in the drop down list.
If you choose acrobat reader and apply it to the file type, it will show as the default.
If you then choose another application in the list and apply, Acrobat Reader disappears from the list.
The system only shows files in the list that advertise to the system that they can read the file type.
You have a system which is populating the list with legitimate programs that are compatible with the advertised file type.
It is reading that advertisement for the quicktime application somewhere.
The configuration is written to each file individually, you can choose to have a single file associated with a particular application or have it apply to all files of that type.
Check in Spotlight for a copy of the application in another location.

Duplicate programs listed in "Open With" menu

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