Change "Open With" from terminal [duplicate]
Solution 1:
duti is a shell utility that enables using a text file to configure the default applications for file types and URL schemes.
For example save a file like this as ~/.duti
:
com.gnu.Emacs public.plain-text all
com.gnu.Emacs public.unix-executable all
org.videolan.vlc .mkv all
Then run duti ~/.duti
.
You can install duti with brew install duti
or by running wget https://github.com/fitterhappier/duti/archive/duti-1.5.2.tar.gz;tar -xf duti-1.5.2.tar.gz;cd duti-duti-1.5.2;./configure;make;sudo make install
.
Solution 2:
Launch Services is responsible for default file associations.
Let's say I wanted to change all text files to open in Sublime Text 2.
First I need the kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier for Sublime Text 2. I can use mdls to get this information:
> mdls /Applications/Sublime\ Text\ 2.app
_kTimeMachineIsCreationMarker = 1
_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot = 4001-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot = 2012-02-22 03:49:19 +0000
kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier = "com.sublimetext.2"
....snip....
I can find out the content type value for text files by inspecting one of them with mdls:
> mdls test.txt
kMDItemContentCreationDate = 2012-03-25 04:18:50 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2012-03-25 04:18:50 +0000
kMDItemContentType = "public.plain-text"
kMDItemContentTypeTree = (
"public.plain-text",
"public.text",
"public.data",
"public.item",
"public.content"
)
kMDItemDateAdded = 2012-03-25 04:18:50 +0000
kMDItemDisplayName = "test.txt"
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2012-03-25 04:18:50 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2012-03-25 04:18:50 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0
kMDItemFSLabel = 0
kMDItemFSName = "test.txt"
kMDItemFSNodeCount = 975
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 20
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 501
kMDItemFSSize = 975
kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""
kMDItemKind = "Plain Text"
kMDItemLogicalSize = 975
kMDItemPhysicalSize = 4096
In this case I'll change the default application for all public.plain-text
types.
To do this I type:
defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSHandlers -array-add '{ LSHandlerContentType = \"public.plain-text\"; LSHandlerRoleAll = \"com.sublimetext.2\"; }'
If I want the changes to take effect I'll need to restart Launch Services like so:
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
And to give credit where credit is due, I learned about this approach from this stackoverflow.com question and answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9172226/how-to-set-default-application-for-specific-file-types-in-mac-os-x