"Open With" lists duplicates of applications

Hello!
When I right-click (Control-click) on a file in the finder, and hover over the "Open With" item, it spools for a moment then comes up with a list of a bunch of applications. Unfortunately, many applications are listed twice (or more) times in this list. For example, if I do an "open with" on a PDF file, I see Photoshop Elements 4 listed 3 times, Adobe Reader listed twice, Safari listed twice, and then several other apps that I didn't realize even opened PDFs! I don't see Preview either.
I assume that this is a problem with the Launch Services database, but I don't know how to "rebuild" the database. Can anyone help out?
Thanks,
-Dan

HI Dan,
Try the following:
To reset Launch Services under Tiger
1. Quit all running applications.
2. Trash the following two files in the Macintosh HD > Library > Caches folder:
• com.apple.LaunchServices-0140.csstore
• com.apple.LaunchServices-014nnn.csstore
where nnn is the uid number, as listed in the NetInfo database, of the affected account. Type your Admin password if prompted to authenticate the deletion of these files.
3. Restart your Mac.
4. Log in to the affected account.
5. Empty the Trash.
Verify that the problem is solved. If not:
1. Trash the com.apple.LaunchServices.plist file in the Home > Library > Preferences folder of the affected account.
2. Repeat steps 1-5.
See if that helps... if not post back.
Carolyn

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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

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

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???
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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

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.
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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

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.
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How can I edit the "Open With"-list in finder?
I know that I can change default application by clicking on "Get info", but I don't want to change default application I just want to add an application to the top of the "Open With"-list.
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You can't edit the Open With list, it is created by the system by polling all your installed applications for their list of files that they can open. If a program claims it can open jpegs, it is added to the list. If it lacks a notification file for the system to read it won't be added. There is nothing you can do about either situation--you can't add, subtract nor rearrange the list.
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Rob Griffiths has written a tutorial on creating a Service in Automator:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137494/Howto_create_a_Service_in_Snow_Leopard?source=rssnews
There's an introduction to Automator here:
http://www.macosxautomation.com/automator/transcript.html
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Francine
Francine
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