Drag & drop of MP4s onto browser icons in dock in Big Sur

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Drag & drop of MP4s onto browser icons in dock in Big Sur

Prior to my upgrade to Big Sur, I was able to open MP4 files in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome icons, both by dragging onto their icon in the dock, onto a new open tab in the browser, or using the File>Open File menu option. If multiples were dragged onto the icon in the dock, all would launch the app if needed, then open tabs for each dropped MP4. Since updating to Big Sur, I can do this with JPGs for all 3 browsers, PDFs for Safari and Chrome, TIFFs for Safari only, but not with MP4s for any of the browsers. Anyone else experience this? Have a solution? I have a bunch of MP4s that I wish to evaluate, and it's easiest when they are on adjacent browser tabs.

Mac mini, macOS 10.13

Posted on Oct 21, 2021 8:34 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 21, 2021 9:51 AM in response to David Minehart

Apparently, Safari does not register as an application that can open mp4 files: if you take an mp4 file, control-click and choose Open With, Safari does not show. Still, it CAN open the files. You can choose Other, and navigate to Safari, but have to choose "All" instead of "Recommended" applications. Obviously impractical.

I would just use Quicktime Player instead, but: if you want to use Safari (and I expect similarly for other applications), you can make a little Automator action that does it for you. Something like this:

It only needs a short AppleScript script to open all the files.

To use, just select the files, control-click, Services->Open movies in Safari;

also, you can add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences->Keyboard->Shortcuts->Services and make it even quicker to use.

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Drag & drop of MP4s onto browser icons in dock in Big Sur

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