How to Change the Default Application for Specific File Types on Mac

By default, macOS opens files using built-in Apple applications—such as Preview for PDFs and images, QuickTime for video media, and TextEdit for plain text documents. While Apple’s default utilities are lightweight and fast, you may prefer opening documents in dedicated third-party programs like Adobe Acrobat, VLC media player, or Visual Studio Code. Rather than right-clicking each document individually, you can configure macOS to open all files sharing the same extension in your preferred application globally.

Changing the Default Application for All Files of a Type

The definitive way to reassign file associations across your entire user account is through the Finder document metadata inspector.

1. Open Finder and locate any file that uses the extension you want to reassign (for example, a .pdf, .mp4, or .docx document).
2. Right-click (or Control-click) the file and select Get Info, or press Command + I.
3. In the Info panel that opens, expand the section labelled Open with: by clicking its disclosure triangle if it is collapsed.
4. Click the drop-down menu and choose your desired default application from the list of installed software. If your application is not listed, select Other…, navigate to your Applications folder, and choose the executable.
5. Below the drop-down menu, click the Change All… button.
6. A verification prompt will ask: “Are you sure you want to change all similar documents to open with the application?” Click Continue to apply the change globally.

From this point onward, double-clicking any file bearing that specific format will launch your chosen application automatically.

Opening a Single File in an Alternative Application

If you wish to open a specific file in a different program without altering system-wide associations, you can use the secondary context menu.

• One-Time Launch: Right-click the document in Finder, hover over Open With, and select the desired secondary program.
• Persistent Single-File Override: Hold down the Option key while viewing the Open With context menu. The option changes from Open With to Always Open With, locking that individual file to the selected software without changing defaults for any other file on your Mac.

Resetting Launch Services if Associations Break

If Finder displays incorrect icons or ignores your default application choices after software updates, the macOS Launch Services database may be corrupted. You can rebuild the database by running this command in Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user; killall Finder

This command flushes the local application registry and restarts Finder, cleanly restoring file type recognition across macOS.