Hello,
In Preview->Preferences in “When opening files:” I have “Open each file in its own window” selected. Unfortunately, Preview won’t obey orders and persists in opening different files in one and the same window. Tried chopping and changing prefs, quitting and re-launching, etc. but no dice.
Is there some ‘dwrite’ or command-line magic that will permanently and really turn off this annoying (mis)behaviour?
Thanks.
MacBook Air, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)
Eric thanks for the follow-up.
By 'restart,' which you've written twice, I trust you mean relaunch (Preview) and not reboot the system.(?)
On the subject of backups, are you familiar and conversant with Backup app/software design? After Apple released its limited and straitjackety TimeMachine, external drive vendors expect their users to use that and, as a consequence, WD discontinued its WDBackup which I found vastly superior to TimeMachine in terms of flexibility and power. You had posted on this thread, in fact.
It's a pity when things start regressing . . . I've made a list of Post-Tiger regressions . . .
Do a backup, preferable 2 backups on 2 separate drives.
Quit Preview.
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. Remove the following. You may not find them all. Restart and test.
Containers/com.apple.Preview
Containers/com.apple.quicklook.ui.helper
Preferences/com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist
Preferences/com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist
Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState
Credit Linc Davis for this solution.
Preview Reset automatic download - 3rd party solution
Thanks.
OK, re "Do a backup, preferable 2 backups on 2 separate drives," you've scared me enough to think twice about this. (I take backups but am not fond of doing unnecessary restores.)
I keep ~/Library in my Finder's sidebar. It's very convenient.
The only one whose deletion might cause trouble appears to be
Containers/com.apple.quicklook.ui.helper ???
Is there a preferred or 'correct' sequence in which one can delete the other files one by one and check Preview's behaviour after each deletion?
I eyeballed a few of them and couldn't see anything that might be related to “When opening files:”
What's bizarre is that the blooming thing apparently at random opens some files in a single window and a few files in their own respective windows when you double-click on several files even of the same type.
Thanks.
You are welcome. Many people don't backup on a regular basis, so I put that there for them.
The file gets regenerated after a restart.
No particular correct sequence, but if you plan to do one by one, you need to restart after each deletion before testing again.
I've been experiencing the same thing, so what I do is simple. When I open a second item in Preview, it appears in one window with a tab along with the first item. I right click on the tab of the second item and select Move Tab to New Window, and it separates them. Until an Apple update gives us back the separate window option, this is my preferred method of working in multiple windows. Hope it helps.
You are welcome. I meant reboot the computer.
Preview – One Window, Many Files
