Or, if you're prompted to set up an email account, add your account, then choose Preferences from the Mail menu.* Choose your email app from the ”Default email reader” pop-up menu. * You can also set your default email app in the preferences of your third-party email app. How to Set the Default Program to Open a Certain Type of File in Mac OS X. And set a new default app to open the files at this time. If you don't know how to set Mac app as default for specific file types, this guide will show you how to set it up. Click on Change All button, and click on the Continue from the pop-up window.
Q: I’m frustrated; every time I accidentally double-click on a WAV or MP3file on my Mac, it copies into my iTunes library and starts to play. Then I have to clean it out of the library. Is there any way to change what happens when I double-click an audio file? I’d rather that it opened up with the QuickTime Player.
A: You can easily change the defaultapplication that opens up any type of file on a Mac. Here’s how to do it:

Set Default Program For Play Button Mac Keyboard

Some users who use Windows more often than Mac OS X may want to set Windows disk as the default one to avoid holding the Alt (Option) key each time. Click the triangle play button below to listen to this computer question and my Plain English. The computer term “default” is one that confuses a lot of people. Basically, it means “what the computer is set to do until you tell it to do otherwise”. This is the default background image. If you change that default image to a new.
  • Select the audio file (single click on it)
  • Open the file’s Information window (Command+I) or right-click and select Get Info.
  • There is a section of the file Info window called “Open with:” click the small arrow to drop this section down if it is closed. Within the drop down menu, you’ll find a list of applications compatible with this file type. Pull down the menu to select the one you want.
  • When you change the assigned app, you are also given the option to click “Change All…” for this file type. If you select this, the app you have selected will be the default to open all files of this type. (So if you get info for a WAV file, change the app to QuickTime Player, and click “Change All…” then the QuickTime Player will become the default app for opening all WAV files.
Set Default Program For Play Button Mac

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I just downloaded a new photo editor but when I double-click on JPG or PNG files on my iMac, it still opens Photoshop. How do I change it so that the default program is the new app instead?

On a PC I’d say you need to deal with the file registry or some complex setting, but on the Mac it’s surprisingly easy to get this correct, though it turns out that there are three possible solutions: you can open up a file with a specific program once, you can specify that particular file should always open up with a specific program or app, or you can tell Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks (or whatever version of Mac OS you’re running) that forevermore all files of the specified type should be assigned to the program you prefer.

You can get into a bit of trouble if you assign a filetype to a program that can’t handle it, like an audio file to be always opened in Adobe Photoshop, but you’ll see, Mac OS X warns you about that by tapping into a list of known file types for each program you have on your system.

Change Default Programs On Mac

Let’s start at the beginning, though.

To open a file with a specific program or application, right click (oops, sorry, “control-click”) on the icon:

Here I’m trying to open up the file “american-hustle-poster.jpg”, a JPEG format image. By choosing “Open With” I get a secondary menu that shows the default app for this file type (Preview) along with a list of different programs that have indicated to the OS that they can handle a JPG file. Try a different file, like a DOCX or a WMA file, and you’ll see a very different list of available apps.

In this case, I’d like to open the image with GraphicConverter 9, so I could do that by simply choosing it from the list.

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Problem with this solution is that it doesn’t change anything for the next time I touch the file: it’ll still open in Preview on double-click.

To change which program owns this particular file, pressing Control-Click THEN, while still holding down the Control key, pressing the Option key produces a slightly different menu:

“Always Open With”. Sounds promising. Again, choose your favorite app and this particular file will now always open in that program.

The wrinkle? It doesn’t change what program owns or will be utilized for all other JPEG or JPG files. To do that click on the file icon to choose it, then press Cmd-I or choose “Get Info” from the “File” menu in the Finder.

Set Default Program For Mac

You can see that I’ve clicked a few of the tiny grey triangles to close up all the sections other than “Open with”. If you don’t see quite the same view, just click on some of the triangles on the left side of each of the seven sections to reveal the “Open with” section.

Now choose the program you’d prefer from the pop-up menu, and it’ll look like this:

Blank invoice template for mac

Looks good. Want to change each and every JPEG file on your computer to open with GraphicConverter 9, not just this one?

I know you do! What is the name of the program that manages wireless network for mac os:x.

Click on “Change All…”

If you’re sure, then a click on “Continue” and you’re done.

That’s it. Not too bad at all, actually. And if you ever want to change it again, just go through the same steps from the Get Info window.

Set Default Program For Play Button Machines

Let’s Stay In Touch!

Set Default Programs Mac Os X

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!