Changing file "kind" from document to application

How do I change a file "kind" from a document (which is opened by another program) to an executable application?

I have some .sea file from Epson that will not open with Stuffit Expander on my iMac with Tiger. I can open them on my iBook with Panther, but they open as independant applications, without Stuffit at all. (Show info does even have the choice for "open with" and under "kind" it says "application")

How can I change the settings on my iMac system so that the .sea extension also indicates an executable program?

iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Posted on Dec 18, 2005 8:40 AM

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Posted on Dec 20, 2005 11:41 AM

Thank you for the links! That makes is so much easier to troubleshoot the problem.

Okay, the files I downloaded from those links are single-file, dual-fork, Carbonized CFM applications. Or, in plain English, they're a Carbonized application that should be able to run either natively in OS X or in OS 9, or if desired, forced to run in the Classic environment by checking the "Open in Classic environment" box in the Get Info window.

Since the application is a single file, it has the file type of 'APPL', a creator code of 'STi0', and a filename extension of '.sea'. The file should be listed as an "Application", and there shouldn't be an "Open With:" section appearing in the Get Info window for it.

Why Aladdin/Allume chose to use a filename extension of ".sea" I'm not sure, as technically, since it's a single file with an 'APPL' file type, the file need not have any extension at all to work as an application.

A combination of discarding the already downloaded files, updating to the latest version of Stuffit Expander, discarding any older versions of Stuffit, rebuiding the Launch Services database properly, disabling the "com.apple.LaunchServices.plist" file, and redownloading the files should solve the problem.

It would be best to discard the files you already have, since if you've attempted to do anything to the "Open With" section of the Get Info window for the file, it alters the file by adding an 'usro' resource to the resource fork. That addition may cause the file to be treated differently after everything else is done.

Since you mentioned you already tried rebuilding the Launch Services database which didn't solve the problem, I wonder if you might want to try updating to the latest version of Stuffit. Either version 9.x or 10.x ought to be sufficient--it's just the earlier versions that I'm not sure about. The reason for this is that the information that populates the LS database is extracted directly from the applications on your Mac, so if there were any problems with the document-to-application information in the older versions of Stuffit, a rebuild in and of itself wouldn't fix the problem.

I'm not sure how Tiger Cache Cleaner will rebuild the database, but a couple of key things should happen in order for the rebuild to be what I would consider "properly done". First of all, the Finder makes extensive use of the LS database, and most likely keeps some form of it cached in its RAM. As you work with the Finder, and for example, drag a new application to your /Applications/ folder, it updates the LS information in its cached version. Then, periodically, it will save this updated LS information to the cache file on the disk. When you issue a rebuild command using the "lsregister" command-line tool, it will rebuild the cache file on disk. If the Finder is running, however, it could at a later time overwrite the cleaned LS file on disk with the information it has cached in its RAM. For that reason, the Finder should not be running while the rebuild is performed. After the rebuild is complete, you should really restart your Mac to make sure that any other applications that were relying on the LS database file by reading it into memory, will be using the proper version. I've written an AppleScript that will rebuild the LS database in this fashion, which you can get at http://homepage.mac.com/mdouma46/images/LaunchServicesDatabaseRebuild.zip (.zip, ~ 8 KB).

After the rebuild but before you restart, disable the following preference file which keeps track of any custom document-to-application bindings:

/Users/~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

Then restart and redownload the files and hopefully they should appear properly.

Hope this helps....

Dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5 w/ 2.5 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.3)
19 replies

Dec 19, 2005 1:46 PM in response to R C-R

Amazingly enough, the type code was already APPL!! I checked the permissions and execute is allowed for all. I even tried "do nothing" as an "open with" default in show info. Why does one of my computers realize that this file is an OSX application and the other one doesn't? It's the same file! How does my system "know" which extensions are reserved for applications?

Dec 20, 2005 5:15 PM in response to MarkDouma®

The file should be listed as an "Application", and there
shouldn't be an "Open With:" section appearing in the
Get Info window for it.


These files seem to act differently (& very strangely!) for different people. When I download them, they are listed as apps, they do not have an 'open with Classic' option, & they do have an "Open With:" section ... which has two options: the exact name of the file itself (which makes a weird sort of sense) & "other."

I have Stuffit 10 & Classic installed. AFAIK, Launch Services is healthy & has been recently rebuilt. I have no idea why I get the results I do.

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Changing file "kind" from document to application

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