Old Apps appear in Open With list

After backing up my data to another hard drive, erasing the target hard drive and doing a clean install of Leopard, I see that when I option-click a file, then select Open With, the list of applications include the apps on my backup hard drive in addition to the apps I have installed on my main drive.
I told Spotlight to exclude the backup drive but alas, only after indexing of both drives have finished.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can cure this?
Thanks!

There's a registry entry that has to be changed from the previous version of Photoshop you had installed, presumably CS4. Do a search ("Find" using regedit) on the registry for "Photoshop CS4" (or your previous version, if any). Once you find it, change the entry to "Photoshop CS5" -- making sure that the complete pathway to Photoshop CS5 is accurate (correct it if it is not).

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Duplicates and non-existent apps in the "Open with" list

My "Open with" list is a mess for nearly all kinds of files. I'm not sure how I could clean this up or edit it. Look at the image below for example. I have some idea about how this happened, but no idea on how to fix it.

That's LaunchServices. These are only cache files but can get corrupted. Launch /Utilities/Terminal and copy & paste this at the command line to rebuild LaunchServices: (be sure to copy the entire line it's a scroll)
Code:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Then press return. Wait until terminal returns to the command line. Quit Terminal. After that, log out and back in or restart. Let us know

How change the File Open With list of apps?

In Bridge CS3, how does one edit the list of applications in the File > Open With menu (also available from the contextual menu for any image).
The list contains a number of applications that I would never use to open an image, and I would like to add to it, a new image editor (pixelmator) that does not appear in it. I have looked in the Bridge Help and the Preferences dialog and don't see any option to do this.

OK, I have now learned that Mac OS keeps the list of which apps to open what, in the "launch services database."
This database can be cleaned up and reset which somewhat simplifies the list that is displayed by the Finder OR by Bridge CS3.
Here is an article on how to reset the launchdb:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486
Be sure to read all the way to the end as there are updated instructions down among the comments.
Here is a thread in the Apple Support forums discussing the same issue, and it includes links to some 3rd-party programs that can reset launch services without use of a lengthy Terminal command:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1289317
Even after rebuilding the launchdb, I find that a large number of apps are "registered" to open JPG files, including Camino, Opera, TextWrangler and others with only a tenuous connection to JPG. I don't understand why this is, and I would still like to find a way to limit the JPG Open-With list to a few graphics programs. But cleaning up the launchdb as described in the linked pages, did get rid of some programs and added some missing ones.
Hope this actually constructive info is useful to others.
Dave Cortesi

Pages does not appear in the open with list

when I open a doc from email, dropbox, etc, using my ipad I don t get the option of Pages in the OPEN WITH list
how I resolve that?
thank you

Ok, I found pages on the iCloud drive. But the behavior of Pages is still the same, problem unchanged.

Open with list

Hello out there,
Lost all of my software due to a virus attack .
Today I reinstalled adobe photo shop 7, on my wds XP pc.
After opening a picture and click the open with tab, my photo shop is not on the list
I have forgotten how to add it to the open with list, please help.
Thank you
George

With the more recent versions of Photoshop, Bridge provides a way to associate the Adobe applications with various file types. In the Bridge app it's in Edit - Preferences - File Associations as I recall. It's possible the very old versions of Photoshop didn't yet have this capability - I'm not sure when the various parts (Bridge, File Associations) appeared.
-Noel

Is there a way to shorten the "Open With" list?

Hi -
This may be a question for Apple because it is a uniquely Apple Finder problem.
Or maybe some clever 3rd party Apple developer will take this on - because this is an Apple Finder problem (hint).
Is there a way to shorten the "Open With" list that appears when I right-click on a file?
Heres why this is important to me.
1- I'm seeing multiple versions of the same app on the list, like Photoshop CS5, Photoshop CS5.1, Photoshop CS 5.5. I can't think of any reason why I would ever want to use an older version of Photoshop. And it's not only Photoshop or even Adobe products.
2- I see incorrect apps being suggested. If I right click on an Illustrator file I see that TextEdit is one of the choices. I get Photoshop as an option to open HTML files. I see BBEdit as an option to open JPEG files. These are bizarre associations. Why are they even on the list?
3- With so many irrelevant choices the possibility of selecting the wrong application increases and doing so is a waste of time and resources. Once I accidentally selected a text editor to open a JPEG. After about 3 minutes of RAM-sucking processing I got a huge file of jibberish text characters that was thousands of lines long. Waste of time!
I KNOW I'm not the only one with this question.
Is there anyone out there with an answer???
Thanks,
JL

baltwo - thank you for the expert advice.
I did as you instructed and the situation is better but I don't believe it's solved.
I still get 3 versions of Photoshop when I right click on a PSD. I also get Dashcode and Textwrangler - which are the oddest associations. All together I get 25 apps responding to "Open With" on a PSD. And this is an improvement.
Do you think I would get even better results if I ran the same command again?
Thanks again.
JL

Is there a way to remove items from "Open With" list?

I have an interesting dilemma that I have not yet found an answer to in all of my internet/discussion forum searches. Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions or searching in the wrong places, but I've given up and now have to post the question in hopes there's an answer out there.
My issue is that whenever I want to use the "Open With" feature for an image/jpeg file, the list of choices is massive! Looking at it now, it lists over 30 applications, but at most I would only ever want to open this type of file in one of maybe four applications.
Starting off, I used to have Parallels on my computer. Have since purchased VMWare Fusion 4 and now use that as my virtual machine to run Windows for some of my design work. As far as I know, I had removed ALL of Parallels from my computer when I uninstalled the app. I followed all of the instructions in the uninstall process, but there seems to be something left behind.
It may seem that mentioning that wouldn't have anything to do with the "Open With" function, but here is a screen shot to show what happens whenever I right-click an image file:
http://www.virtuosocreative.com/apple/openwith1.jpg
Most of the time, if I right click the image, it'd be to open in Photoshop or Set as Desktop. On occasion I have had to open a jpeg file in Illustrator, but that's it.
For some reason, there are still Parallels applications showing on the "Open With" list, even though it was uninstalled and removed from my computer. But like I said earlier, it looks like I missed something.
In addition, although I am not logged into Windows or have Fusion running in the background, the "Open With" list includes all of the suggested Windows apps as well. why???
As much as I appreciate there being such an abundance of options to choose from, this gets extremely annoying when using the feature and I wanted to see if there was any way to modify this list.
More than anything, I really want to get rid of all the Parallels extras that are left on my system. But also, I wanted to see if there was a setting to tweak so that whenever I click on "Open With" on my Mac, it'll only list applications that are my Mac applications and nothing through Fusion or Parallels or anything else. And to take it a step further, it'd be nice to shorten the list to only applications I would personally use for opening a jpeg file. (i.e. Preview (default), Photoshop, Illustrator, Safari).
My system is a 2010 iMac i5 2.8GHz/8GB RAM. Lion OS X 10.7.3
Thanks!

The Open With menu is built by LaunchServices which collects the information from each app as to what it says it can open. VMWare appears to be registering every app to open jpegs.
You might try rebuilding the LaunchServices database. I believe this command still works in Lion. Or, you could use a utility like OnyX to call it:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Can you add apps to iPad open in list

Can you add apps to the open in list of an iPad

As far as I know, you cannot add apps to the Open In list using any setting or built in feature in iOS. This is controlled by the iOS itself. IIRC, you can delete apps from the iPad that appear in the Open In list in order to make room for apps that you would like to appear in there, and if you continue to use the apps that you want to add to that list, eventually they will appear in the list. I believe that the more that you use one particular app, the more likely it will be for it to appear in the Open In list.

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?

Is there a way to get Adobe Camera Raw to appear in "Open With" drop down?

HI,
I was wondering if there might be a way to get a direct link to Adobe Camera Raw to appear in "Open With" drop down menu along with the other choices?

I would think you'd just need to select the Adobe Application you're using... whichever that one is, then the APP would know what to do with RAW.
What are they set for now?

Reset "open-with" list

Hello
i am wondering how i can reset the "open-with" list in finders context menu
Background: i am writing a small mac-application and based on the tests with old versions i do have my open-with list spammed with about 10 entries of the same programm (for each version one entry adding the version number)
I tried following this hint in apple docs:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305627
without success.
any other idea in mind ?
Best regards
fidel

This is from MacOSXhints.com:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25012
"I cannot remember where I got this from but all credits go to the original author:
If your "Open With" menu shows applications that are no longer installed, or shows some of them as duplicates, you can use the following Terminal command to rebuild your LaunchServices database:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/\
Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister \
-kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
just copy and paste into terminal and let it run
Or if you just want to shorten the Open With... then maybe this will help:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...ery=info.plist
Keep this stored in a stickies or something, you would want to be able to find it again next time."
/p

Adobe applications don't appear under "open with"

When I control-click an AI file on my desktop, or some graphic, I do not see any Adobe applications like Illustrator and Photoshop as available options UNLESS those applications are already open. I end up having to dig deep under "Other" everytime to find the applications. I don't have this problem with other applications. This began when I installed CS5 recently. How do I get Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.. to appear under "Open With" automatically? I have already tried to do an "always open with for all files of this type" but that does not get saved after I shut down. It always defaults back to preview.
What is the remedy? I would think solving the first problem bolded above should solve the second automatically.

Have a look at this...
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.

Can I clear the "open with" list

I now have the Adobe suite from 4-CC showing up on my "open with" list and it's annoying to say the least...can I clear it and if so how?

Take a look at this link, https://discussions.apple.com/message/2791046#2791046

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