Why does the OS change the default application to a different one than I set to open all of this type with?

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Level 1

9 points

Why does the OS change the default application to a different one than I set to open all of this type with?

El Capitan 10.11.6 keeps changing the default application to open some file types, even though in the Get Info dialog I had it set to open these with a different application: "Open with: xxxxxxx (default) Use this application to open all documents like this one; Change All..."

This has happened repeatedly when I double-click on a file, so that I must select the file and go back to the Get Info dialog to change it back to what I had previously set the default app to be. Thus far, this has happened with files designated to open with at least three different applications I had set for those file formats: Photoshop CS6 (TIFF, PSD), Preview (PDF), and TextEdit (RTF, RTFD). Mac OS sometimes wants to open these with Illustrator or Acrobat or some other application instead.

Mac mini, iOS 10, 16 GB RAM

Posted on Dec 9, 2017 11:55 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,069 points

Dec 30, 2017 10:12 AM in response to jfgaylord

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 2

Dec 29, 2017 6:07 PM in response to jfgaylord

Same here. I have to reset .jpgs, .mp4, .mkv, etc files every month or two now. Doing a search, I saw someone ask the same question 10 years ago with no answer. 😟

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