Open With showing duplicate apps in finder

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Level 2

236 points

Open With showing duplicate apps in finder

For those of you that use the Apple Mac App Store to download apps and are running into the issue of seeing your applications show up multiple times in the "Open With" command in the finder. This invoked by holding control + clicking an item in the finder and choose the "open with" choice.

I saw another large thread and didn't find an easy answer so I thought I'd post the solution that worked for me:

1 - Launch Terminal. This can be done by holding command key and hitting space bar and then typing terminal.

2 - In Terminal paste the following text and hit return:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.fram ework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

3 - After Terminal comes back tot he ready prompt you can quit Terminal.

4 - Relaunch finder by holding the Option key + clicking on the Finder Icon in your dock.

You can now verify that you only see one version of each appliction by selecting an item in your finder window and holding the control key and clicking on it to see what items are listed in the "Open With" choice.

Hit like if it solved your problem.

Thanks to Tom Nelson and his "Rebuild the Launch Database" article.

http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/remove-duplicate-applications-from-open -with.htm

Posted on Apr 8, 2013 1:40 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,213 points

Apr 8, 2013 2:29 PM in response to sinoue

Good info/tip, thanks! 🙂

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Answer 2

beeber

Level 1

35 points

Feb 20, 2014 6:04 AM in response to sinoue

It didn't work for me. You should mention which OS X version your command was intended for. I got a path name doesn't exist error when running the command.

I found a similar command on a site not related to Apple that gave used a different path. I'm running OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) and that path did exist on my machine, I tried it and it work for me. Here's the steps I took:

1- Launch Terminal.

2- In Terminal paste the following text and hit return:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user && killall Finder

3- It will take some time (30 60 seconds) for the command to be completed. Once completed you can quit Terminal.

There is no need to relaunch Finder, as the command has it built into it ("killall Finder", at the end)

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