cannot associate csv file with excel

I have multiple versions of Microsoft Office installed because who knows when I'll have to open some old version of a file that may not work well in newest Office.

I want csv files to open in the most recent version of excel (~16.12) by default. I press cmd+i with the csv file selected and i tell it to open with the newest version of excel and then i choose Change All... I get a confirmation dialog:

Are you sure you want to change all similar documents to open with the application “Microsoft Excel.app”?

This change will apply to all documents with extension “.csv”.

So I confirm (Continue).

Then promptly the info window shows the previous/wrong version of Excel.

update: this seems to be resolved, but I honestly have no idea why. Possibly Microsoft or MacOS updates? Possibly (more likely?) the restarts those updates caused?

Solution 1:

This is an issue if you have two versions of Excel installed at once (like 2011 and 2016) in Mac OS. There is a way to sort this out.

Click on the file in question and drag it into the icon for the Excel you want to associate it with (like the 2016 icon in your dock). It will now associate all CSV files with excel 2016.

Caveat: if you have only Excel 2011 open and not 2016 and you click to open that file it will open in 2011. If you have 2011 and 2016 open at the same time it will open in 2016. If you have neither excel open it will open in 2016.

Note: the Get info will now read the association correctly but do not hit the Open With button as that will re-associate it with 2011.