Tutorial: Clear the Finder’s “Open With” Menu
A problem I have had recently is one just small enough to get under the skin. Have you ever right-clicked and selected “Open With” on an image to open it with your favorite editor only to be bombarded with a list of applications you thought you removed ages ago? Maybe even some you never knew existed? There is also the problem of duplicates.
Mac OS X seems to think that some of my applications are more useful than others by listing them twice. There has to be an easy way to fix this right?
The first thing you need to know is that the list is automatically generated by OS X. It depends on what applications you have installed, and if those applications can handle particular files. The problem is that it doesn’t update itself very often, and the list can get very bloated if not cleared out every so often. Everything is stored in a single file located in your preferences folder. Take the following steps to delete this file so the list can get a fresh rebuild.
- Go to your Home/Library/Preferences folder
- Find “com.apple.LaunchServices” file and trash it (you can back it up if you want)
- Test it out!
There you have it. The next time you right-click on an item and select “Open With” in the Finder, only current applications will be listed. Some items may return if the application that controls them adds itself back to the list. You can delete the file again if you are having problems.
If you want to, you can create a script to automatically trash this file for you at any interval you desire. Check out this page for help doing that.
Great! Now how do I stop it from spinning up my external hard-drives (and pausing for the 4-6 seconds that that takes) whenever my mouse hovers over ‘Open With’ for too long?
Photoshop clutters my list like hell! Anyone know how to control which items are displayed int he first place?
Are you using leopard or pre-Tiger OS X? The highlighter bar is a different shape than in Tiger.
@Bob – I think he is running a ShapeShifter Theme.
Don’t you have to at least re-start the Finder (if not completely log out)? This tip doesn’t work for me… though I haven’t tried logging out yet.
Didn’t work for me either and I restared my Mac :/
Did nothing for me either, and I also did a restart. A side effect though was/is that all my apps forgot who was boss. Ie. Firefox asked if I wanted to set it as my default browser, NNW asked if I wanted to set it as default newsreader and Adium asked if I wanted to… you know the drill.
Apple’s word on this procedure seems exactly the same as above: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305627
Didn’t work for me either, but here’s a solution that will (you’ll probably have to do it again every so often):
1. Open Terminal
2. Copy and paste the following command:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
[...] want to get even more granular with your Open With Menu, check out the Mac OS X Hints post below. Tutorial: Clear the Finder’s “Open With” Menu [MacApper]Remove excess ‘Open with…’ contextual menu entries [Mac OS X [...]
When this became a problem for me, I used Cocktail to clean it out. If this tip does not work for you, there are a few other Mac maintenance applications that will do it for you.
[...] [Via MacApper] [...]
Did nothing for me either. I’ve had duplicates of all my apps in there for 2 years. Very frustrating. At least I now know other people have the same issue. I am too scared to do Terminal thingies.
It works, Simon – it’s very easy. I just did it with no problems. I got the tip from here:
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000643.html
While it does get rid of duplicate program entries, it doesn’t solve the other problems: there are at least a dozen droplets Adobe has crapped all over my context menu.
Dr. Girlfriend is right, the tip as published above doesn’t work, but the drunkenblog command does. Deleting com.apple.LaunchServices.plist only bins your default app preferences.
There’s another added benefit that doesn’t appear to be mentioned (unless I missed it). I’ve been having trouble with finder for some time now, when trying to get the context menu in a mounted drive. Didn’t matter if it was a mounted sparseimage file, a network samba/afp share, or even a Macfusion mount. Right clicking (or CTRL-click) in the finder window (to create a new folder, for instance) caused finder to crash.
I thought it was something I’d have to live with until Leopard came out, but after using the command above (THANK YOU Dr. Girlfriend!), I forgot about this issue as I often do before 9:00 in the morning, and had created a folder and moved several things around in a sparseimage finder window before I wondered why it didn’t crash on me. Apparently this command cleaned out whatever was causing it.
So, I’m starting a OSXCleanupCmd script in my ~/bin directory. This command goes at the top, and will be run every couple months – or whenever I have weird behavior. It would be neat to find a list of potential candidate commands for such a script.
Lou
…an easier fix for those having problems with this tip: download the free mainmenu application, then go to cleaning and rebuild launch services…that’ll fix it up fast..
[...] want to get even more granular with your Open With Menu, check out the Mac OS X Hints post below. Tutorial: Clear the Finder’s “Open With” Menu [MacApper] Remove excess ‘Open with…’ contextual menu entries [Mac OS X [...]
[...] Tutorial: Clear the Finder's “Open With Menu | MacApper (tags: mac finder openwith) [...]
[...] Tutorial: Clear the Finder's “Open With Menu [via Lifehacker] [...]
[...] bem. Essa lista é gerada automaticamente pelo sistema, como todos sabemos. O que não sabÃamos e o que nosso leitor Bruno Casarini descobriu é que ela não é atualizada tão constantemente [...]
[...] Fix “Open With” Duplicates [...]
yea umm i need help.. lol you know when you u try to view a file and in order to do that you have to go through that open file with stuffs? well by accident i clicked use this option for everything(i dont know if i wrote that verbatim)and now it always open any file with wordpad. I really dont want this because its affecting everything such as other files for work. -.- help asap.
thanks
Cocktail works fine with this issue.
On Leopard I found that: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
Worked perfectly (and removed all the Parallels and VMWare Fusion associations that were still there even after I disabled smartselect etc.)
[...] MacApper:Clear the Finder's Open With Menu – Check out the comments on this post for a good discussion of why the Apple method mentioned above is inadequate. [...]
I tried all of the suggested ways to get rid of the unwanted “Open With..” files, however they never cleared the Adobe droplets. I could never figure out how to get them off until i searched for one of the droplet files locations:
/Applications/Adobe Illustrator/Samples/Droplets
There are two folders contained within this folder (ImageReadyDroplets and PhotoshopDroplets)
I then compressed both of these folders and deleted the original folders off of my computer.
It may not at first seem like it worked, but give it a few minutes and browse through the Finder and it will eventually clear them. (or restart the finder)
All I have now is to remove Parallels items (Paint, WordPad, etc.) I have already gotten rid of anything Parallels on my computer, yet they still exist. Any help?
It didn’t work for me, but this did.
in terminal type or copy the following and press return.
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
I found this on the internet and it does work.
[...] Tutorial: Clear the Finder's Open With Menu [via Lifehacker] [...]
Alan’s version of the command to paste into terminal worked well for me using 10.6.3 and cleared out the parallels and VMWare list also.
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
[...] MacApper: Clear the Finder's Open With Menu – Check out the comments on this post for a good discussion of why the Apple method mentioned above is inadequate. [...]
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Alex M thanks!! This worked!!! (removed the .exe files (I’m on a Mac anyways) in Samples/Droplets folder and waited 2 minutes)
Update: The following terminal command still works on Mac OS X version 10.6.7
Open spotlight (click on the magnifying glass upper right corner) then type terminal if the Top Hit is Terminal, press return to open terminal. A Terminal box will open, then cut and paste the following line into terminal and press return. It takes about 20 seconds to run. I ran it twice but I think it might just take a couple minutes to work. It got rid of several duplicates in my “open with” list.
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
edh
Does anyone know a utility or a way to ADD an app to the Finders “open with” list?
Didn’t work for me either and I restared my Mac
Great tips, thanks for sharing, it is truly a worth while subject.
These strategies also worked to provide a good way to recognize that other people online have the same dream really like my own to see way more pertaining to this issue.
Neither deleting the *.plist file in Finder nor running the terminal command (lsregister) worked for me. I want to clear entries in my “Open with…” drop down menu in Snow Leopard.
Ed H tip worked for me. Trashing the com.Apple.Launchservises file does not work at all. This same tip is at Apple site and just won’t work. Running Snow Leopard. Thanks! Though now for some reason my rar files want to be opened in Path Finder even though I clearly set the them open in Stuffit Expander (even the icon matches Stuffit). Oh well, at least I no longer have 4 different Opera’s in the open with list on html files for example.