Preview crashes on El Capitan

Troubleshooting Preview App in El Capitan

Previous Mac users have suggested to delete certain files within your Home Library folder. I did this, but added a couple other important steps. As this solved my Preview app problem, I’m hoping it will help you. Let me just say before I write down these steps, that it initially took over 50 seconds for Preview to open. After that, it opened every file instantly even after quitting and restarting the application. Let me also mention that I am not a computer tech guy, a programmer, or even claim to understand the inner workings of the OS X system. I’m just like most everybody else that comes to the is forum looking for answers. With that said, I will describe exactly what I did step for step.

Step 1:

Open your Library folder within your HOME folder (house icon)

Step 2:

Open the Containers folder within your Library folder and remove:

com.apple.Preview

com.apple.quicklook.ui.helper

* (I put this folder and other into my “empty” trash bin until I was sure I could safely delete them)

Step 3:

Open your Group Containers folder within your Library folder and remove:

com.apple.Preview

Step 4:

Open your Preferences folder within your Library folder and remove:

com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist

com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist

Step 5:

Close all windows and Quit all applications.

Step 6:

Restart computer from your Apple Menu. (top left)

Step 7:

Hold down the Apple Key and the letter R as soon as your screen turns black. (Command R)

Keep these 2 keys depressed until you see the “OS X Utilities” screen.

This could take 2-3 minutes. Be patient! My screen actually loaded twice.

* Command R opens your Recovery System.

Step 8:

Click on Disk Utility and then hit the Continue button.

Step 9:

Click on your Hard Disk icon at the top left and run First Aid.

Step 10:

Click the Done button and Quit Disk Utility. (Command Q)

Step 11:

Restart computer from your Apple Menu.

* After you’ve restarted your computer—and I assume entered your password—wait a minute or so to make sure everything has completely loaded. Then, try opening any pictures or PDF files that would start up Preview. It may take an unusually long time to open, but if you’re lucky like I was, the problem has been solved.

Hope this helped.

This seems to have fixed the problem for me. Thanks!

This works for me. Thanks !

Thank you. This worked for me as well.

This worked for me!

Hi Marto

Does this method also work for OSX sierra?

Just had a major crash on macbook pro11,3

Thanks