OS X Tip "Open With..."

dstranathandstranathan
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
In the Finder, If you control-click (or right-click) a file, you see the "Open With..." menu option in the contrexual menu (along with "Get Info", etc). But...



If you Option + right-click the file, you will see the "Open With" option change to "Always Open With..."



I love this!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    funky eh?



    OS X is so damn full of undocumented stuff.



    I'm still convinced that there is a "secret about box" easter egg SOMEWHERE
  • Reply 2 of 10
    gargoylegargoyle Posts: 660member
    Got a bit confused when this didn't work for me. Right click the file, then press the alt / option key. You can actually see the menu change in-front of your eyes....







    Ohhh option - command - I opens an inspector instead of the normal get Info box. The inspector changes as you click on different files. Cool.



    You know you are all making menus pop up and are looking for changes by pressing the alt / option key. ...



  • Reply 3 of 10
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    On the subject... is there a way to edit the list of applications that's shown in the "Open with..." submenu?



    I often like to open PDFs in Safari/PDFViewer, since I always have Safari open. But since OSX doesn't know that Safari can display PDFs, so that means navigating to the "other..." dialog box, selecting "Show All Applications" and then finding Safari. Almost (but not quite) as much trouble as waiting for Acrobloat6 to launch.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    kanekane Posts: 392member
    This was such a good tip that I have already used it several times this morning. Thanks dstranathan!
  • Reply 5 of 10
    code mastercode master Posts: 344member
    Perhaps a faster way of opening your PDF's in safari is to drag them to the safari icon in the Dock.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    Just a friendly general OS X tip: The option key will do a lot of stuff. Watch some menus changes while they're open if you press the option button. In Safari, pressing the option button with the File menu open will toggle to "close all windows".
  • Reply 7 of 10
    wjmoorewjmoore Posts: 210member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Towel

    On the subject... is there a way to edit the list of applications that's shown in the "Open with..." submenu?



    I often like to open PDFs in Safari/PDFViewer, since I always have Safari open. But since OSX doesn't know that Safari can display PDFs, so that means navigating to the "other..." dialog box, selecting "Show All Applications" and then finding Safari. Almost (but not quite) as much trouble as waiting for Acrobloat6 to launch.



    I think I have a better solution... grab the file, drag it on-top of the Safari icon in the dock and press Command-Option, it will open in Safari (assuming you have the PDF plugin which I know you said you did Towel).
  • Reply 8 of 10
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by WJMoore

    I think I have a better solution... grab the file, drag it on-top of the Safari icon in the dock and press Command-Option, it will open in Safari (assuming you have the PDF plugin which I know you said you did Towel).



    Rock on! Just dragging it obviously doesn't work (I presume for the same reason it's not in the Open With menu...OSX isn't aware that the plug-in lets Safari open PDFs), but pressing Cmd-Opt while it's there works like a charm! Very cool. Thanks, WJMoore. I'm guessing that Cmd-Opt in general will force an application to (try to) open a file. Very useful little tip.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    wjmoorewjmoore Posts: 210member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Towel

    Rock on! Just dragging it obviously doesn't work (I presume for the same reason it's not in the Open With menu...OSX isn't aware that the plug-in lets Safari open PDFs), but pressing Cmd-Opt while it's there works like a charm! Very cool. Thanks, WJMoore. I'm guessing that Cmd-Opt in general will force an application to (try to) open a file. Very useful little tip.



    Glad you found it useful. As you suspect it applies to all applications. I found out about it in the 10.1 days from an Apple knowledge base article.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    mattjohndrowmattjohndrow Posts: 1,618member
    you can use a program called ziing, or something like that to set what applications appear in an open with column, and i can't explain it too well, but it's faster than apple's open with column, check it out on VT
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