How do I rebuild the 'open with' contextual menus?

I'm running the latest version of OSX 10 Mountain Lion… the contextual menu 'open with' section shows multiple instances of the same programs, sometimes 6 or 8 of them. How can I rebuild the menu so that it shows only one copy of each program?

Rebuild LaunchServices Database
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt paste in the following command in its entirety:
find /System/Library/Frameworks -type f -name "lsregister" -exec {} -kill -seed -r \;
Press RETURN. Wait for the Terminal prompt to return after which you can quit the Terminal.

Similar Messages

How can I shorten the "Open With" menu?

Hi -
When I Control-Click on a file, say one with an HTML extension, and move down to "Open with" I see a list of about 24 apps - only 4 of which are of interest to me for opening this HTML file. If I right-click an XML file - the apps I'm looking for are either Dreamweaver or BBEdit - and they are way down the list of candidates.
PSD files give me the same unweildy results. (I've got old versions of Photoshop, Flash, Dashcode, Quicktime, Illustrator and many more on that contextual list - all apps irrelevant for my work on PSD).
I tried using "Get Info" on a PSD, selected the latest Photoshop from the list of "Open with:" and clicked "Change All..." but that didn't narrow down the list very much at all - not even on that one particular file. I still have TextWrangler, Quicktime Player 7, Dashcode, ColorSync Utility, 3 old versions of Photoshop, 3 old versions of Illustrator to name just a few apps that I wouldn't pick.
I found out the hard way that I cannot discard old versions of Adobe applications. The new ones will not work without their ancestors on the same drive.
Its not just Adobe apps anyway. After all - Textwrangler to open a PSD??? How was THAT association made?
Is there a way to narrow the "Open With" contextual menu list?
TIA your experise.
J2

I'm sure this is stored in some .plist file somewhere, but this is really more a generic Mac question, so asking it on a Mac forum is more likely to yield any answers...
Mylenium

How do we add apps to the 'Open With' contextual menu?

After I updated to Mavericks, all of the apps, except the Apple ones, were blown away (eg. Word and Excel in my VM).
How do I put them back?

'Open With > Other' would not show the apps in my VM. I tried.
I tried something different. I left Word open in my Parallels (Vista) VM and ignored it for a while to see if Maverics would pick it up eventually.
It did.
It seems like that it takes some time for Maverics to find the apps in a VM before we can use it in the 'Open With' menu.

How do I clear the "Open With" menu

Can someone please help me out? I'm working with OSX 10.9.4. My question is simple! I would like to clear out the "Open With" menu! I just received a new Version of Photoshop and now I have two versions in the open with menu, along with others that I will never use.

Rebuild LaunchServices Database
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt paste in the following command in its entirety:
find /System/Library/Frameworks -type f -name "lsregister" -exec {} -kill -seed -r \;
Press RETURN. Wait for the Terminal prompt to return after which you can quit the Terminal.

How do i get the "open with" option back for pdfs after accidentally hitting the save option which now automatically saves any pdf?

Normally when I click on a pdf I would get an option to "Open With" or Save. I usually just opened pdfs first. I accidentally clicked on the Save option in this dialog box and now when I click on any pdf it automatically asks me where I want to save it. I want to get the "open With" option back, because I don't necessarily want to save a copy of every pdf.

Mountain Lion was released in 2012, so I suppose there might be advice in old threads or on the Apple forums if you don't get a response here right away.

How Do I Edit My 'Open With' Contextual Menu?

When I right click on an image file and select Open With I get a long list of options. Many of them are .exe files and look like actions (Make GIF 64 colors.exe for example).
How can I edit this list? Some information I found mentioned editing the info.plist file in Photoshop, so I'm sure it's a PS issue.
Thanks
Nicholas
[Photoshop CS4 Extended - Master Collection, MacBook Pro, OS X (10.6.1), Ikea Desk, Takamine Acoustic ]

Exactly - that's what I thought. Most of those seemed to have disappeared since I nervously uninstalled CS2 (I upgraded from 2 to 4), although I've heard that things can creep back as you use the apps again. I also renamed the plist file.
However it would be nice to be able to edit what appears there. I'll give that link a shot - thanks for that.

How can I reset the "open with" dialog?

When I select a file and choose "open with," certain applications are tripled, such as TextEdit, Preview, Quicktime Player, and Safari, while others are doubled, such as ColorSync Utility and others. Some are only listed once. I'm wondering if there is a way to reset this menu so that each applicable application is only listed once.
Thank you,
Henry
Also - I am running OS X 10.4.11, in case that is relevant.

Hello,
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...
Reset Launch Services...
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html#Anchor-Reset-47857
Reboot.
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.

How do I change the "Open with Windows Wordpad Application (default)" for a DOCX file to I guess, Microsoft Word?

I think the "Wordpad Application (default) got entered some time ago while trying to open a DOCX file. I now have a compatibility pack downloaded for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Formats for my Office 2003 and I think I could open a DOCX file now but can't get this Wordpad application removed and changed to another application to open it, which I think would probably be Word or if someone has another suggestion.

I can't get "Use Microsoft Word (default)" to appear as an Action option. Only Windows WordPad application, Media Center, Internet Explorer, iTunes, Media Player Classic, Nero, Windows Photo, Picasa, Windows Calendar and wWindow Media Player appear as choices. I don't know how to add Microsoft Word as a choice. Maybe the second part of the instructions in your reply "Adding download actions" would solve this but I don't understand the instruction starting with #1. I don't know how to go about doing what it says to do.
I don't think it makes any difference, but I do have Office XP instead of 03 as I stated in my first question.

How do I change the "Open with" on iPad

When I try to download some videos, a dialog pops up and gives me an application to select (usually iZip or DropBox), to open the file.
Obviously neither app will open the video. How do I control which app to use to open files ?

There was one reply that helped me change my Apple ID on my IPad but it wasn't very clear, so basically, go to 'settings' on the IPad; select 'store' on the left hand panel; sign out; select "use existing id" and put in the new 'Apple ID". I think the problem I had was that by mentioning the Apps Store, I was trying to change the ID from the Apps Store, but I must admit, navigating and a combination of instructions helped a great deal, so thank you.

TA24770 How can I reset the "Open With" menu?

Any help?

Hello,
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...
Reset Launch Services...
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html#Anchor-Reset-47857
Reboot.
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.

The "Open With" does not open to my most CURRENT Lightroom

I have Lighroom 5, but when I right click on a picture in a file, for example, and say OPEN WITH, it opens with the OLD VERSION of Lighroom--not the current version. The only way I can make it right is to go to my programs, and open Lighroom from there. How do I get the OPEN WITH to open with the current version? Thank you!

Thanks for the email. I hadn’t worked in Lightroom for several weeks, then opened Lightroom from the shortcut on the desktop, and after over an hour of working on a photo realized that I was working in the OLD version. So I deleted the desktop shortcut. Tonight, my son emailed me a photo of their baby—I right clicked and did the OPEN WITH, and it opened up in the old version. If I am opening a photo that was sent through an email, I always use OPEN WITH, so I can’t figure out how I can get the OPEN WITH to default to Lightroom 5. But there has to be a way, because I have to open emailed photos that way.
Thanks again!
Diane

Why is the "open with" option always grayed out when I click on a file link?

For example, when accessing an email account with firefox and I click on an .mp3 attachment the "open with" choice is always grayed out. This issue is not exclusive to email attachments rather all file links that I click on any site give me the same result. I am using MAC OS X Mavericks.
How can I restore the "open with" selection?
Thanks for your time,
Chris Woods

You can try rename (or delete) the mimeTypes.rdf file in the Firefox profile folder to reset all file actions.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/mimeTypes.rdf
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/File_types_and_download_actions#Resetting_download_actions
You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:
*Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Director: Show Folder (Linux: Open Director; Mac: Show in Finder)

Xcode appears multiple times in the "Open With ..." list

This little problem has been bothering me for a while now.
Whenever I right-click a source code file (c, java but also sh) in the Finder and select the "Open With ..." option, I am presented with a list of possible applications. The first one (default) is Xcode. Then I see a list of alternatives that includes a text editor I use and ... 4 times Xcode again.
I have been faithfully upgrading Xcode whenever the app store offers me to - probably 4 times since I installed it. It looks like each installation just adds one more Xcode option to the list.
Has anyone seen this ?
Is there a way to remove the extraneous items from the "Open With" list ?
Is there a way to customize that list ?
Thanks
Albert

The simplest way to correct Open With list redundancy is to reboot into safe mode, and let the OS clean out the duplicates. After the screen goes dark on a reboot, press and hold the shift key until a grey progress bar appears.
Eventually, you will be brought to a linen background and login box. Enter your credentials, but before you click the right arrow next to the password, press and hold shift again. After you are logged in, reboot the computer again.
The redundant menu items are gone.
I have deliberately not posted the lengthy, arcane, command line sequence that rebuilds the Open With database. It is much simpler to use the above technique for all user levels and it does the same thing.
You do not need to customize the list. If an application is capable of opening a specific file, you can press both option+command while dragging and dropping the file onto the desired application you want to open it. If the application can, it will, otherwise it will not.

How To Reset/Clear Open With Contextual Meni

I right click on a jpeg, and it shows three PS CS3, Illustrator, Color Sync, Device Central, etc. choices.
I have only one of the apps installed.
How do I clear or reset the "open with" menu in the Finder?

Rebuild LaunchServices Database
For Tiger users
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt paste in the following command in its entirety:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServic es.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Press RETURN.
For Leopard and Snow Leopard users
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt paste in the following command in its entirety:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Press RETURN.

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?

How do I rebuild the 'open with' contextual menus?

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