Duplicate apps in "Open With' dropdown

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tacitus99 Author

Level 1

7 points

Duplicate apps in "Open With' dropdown

For some reason the "open with…” menu has several items which are new versions of the same app.

Eg Open with:

PDF Expert( 2.5.6)

PDF Expert( 2.5.7)

PDF Expert( 2.5.8)

There’s a couple of others in the same vein, but you get the idea. All of them refer me back to the only installed version of each app

I’ve tried deleting: ~/library/preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.prefs but this is

replaced on restart with one labelled: com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV2

There is also a folder: com.apple.LaunchServices which contains: com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist Opening this with BBEdit shows only a single pdfexpert with no version numbers and similarly for the others.

`I’ve also tried rebuilding the launch services database which doesn’t solve the problem.

Can someone tell me how I can remove what are effectively duplicates, from the menu.

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Jun 24, 2020 1:57 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

tacitus99 Author

Level 1

7 points

Jun 25, 2020 12:39 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thanks for this. The terminal commands worked as expected with a slew of deletes scrolling through the terminal. However it didn't solve the problem.

Early on I checked for duplicate apps since this seemed the most obvious source of the problem but found nothing.

Using 'open with' I managed to open the 'old' apps which then appeared in the Dock. From their I could show in finder and locate them. Remarkably two of them were in the Application Support folder, not the most obvious place for an application.

How they got there will remain a mystery, but I deleted them and all is now well.

Thanks for the help.

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Answer 2

Jun 24, 2020 2:20 AM in response to tacitus99

To reset launch services database, paste the following (a single long line) into a Terminal window:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain u -domain s -domain l -v

Wait for the next prompt to appear (it may take a little while)

then paste the following:

killall Dock

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Duplicate apps in "Open With' dropdown

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