Osx Change Default Application For File Type
Mac Choose Default Program
Change Default Programs On Mac
Mac Os Default Program

How to change the default Mac app for specific file types Right-click on a file that uses the file type you'd like to change the default for. For example, one with a.jpg extension (a photo). Browsers don’t recognize these files by default. There’s a way to force an association between a file type and an application, but that application still has to recognize the extension. Mac OS X makes it easy to change file associations, which determine what programs are used to open various file types. You can change the setting for individual files or for all files of a specific file type.

Hi markyrwol,
A default program is the program that Windows uses when you open a particular type of file, such as a music file, an image, or a webpage. For example, if you have more than one web browser installed on your computer, you can choose one of them to be the default browser.
You may change (set another program as default program) your default program following the steps mentioned below:
1. Open Default Programs by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Default Programs.
2. Click Associate a file type or protocol with a program.
3. Click the file type or protocol that you want the program to act as the default for.
4. Click Change program.
5. Click the program that you want to use as the default for the file type you selected, or click the arrow next to Other Programs to show additional programs. (If you don't see Other Programs, or your program is not listed, click Browse to find the program you want to use, and then click Open. If no other programs are installed that are able to open the file type or protocol, your choices will be limited.)

Right there in the file’s Info window. Here’s how you do it: Click one of the files in the Finder. Choose File→Get Info (Command+I). In the Info window, click the gray triangle to disclose the Open With pane. From the pop-up menu, choose an application that Mac OS X believes will open this document type. How to change the default application for a file type in Mac OS X? Right-click on a file, then click on Get info. In the “Get Info” options, you can easily select which application you would like to be the default for opening your file. In case you configured Apps sharing between your host Mac and guest virtual machine, the apps from the both systems will be listed.

For more information, you may visit the link mentioned below:
Change which programs Windows uses by default
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Change-which-programs-Windows-uses-by-default
Hope this information is useful.
Regards,
Sujan – Microsoft Support
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Active7 years, 2 months ago

How to set an icon for some file types thought the whole system?

For example, I have text files that ends with .scala extension and I want to associate an icon for that files through the whole system and for any newly created file of this extension.

Thanks.

Chiron

Chiron

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3 Answers

Icons for file types are handled by Launch Services (the service determining, among other things, which application handles a file type). The file icon is always provided by the application handling opening a file by default. This way, e.g. Preview provides PDF icons by default, and PNG icons, but if you change all PNG files to open using Pixelmator instead, these files get a Pixelmator-style icon afterwards.

What you need to do is add your file type definition to the application that opens it by default, or create your own 'dummy' application for the file type.

As an example, my system does not yet know about .scala, and I want TextMate to handle it.

First, I Show Package Contents of TextMate.app, navigate to Contents/ and open Info.plist, either with a text editor, or Property List Editor, part of Apple's developer tools.

TextMate uses an unusual format for Info.plist (it's usually binary or XML), an excerpt of which looks like this:

The parent key CFBundleDocumentTypes is what we want. The first child element of it, enclosed in curly braces, contains a file type definition, complete with name (for file type column in Finder), file extensions, and the name of the icon file (ADA for TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/ADA.icns).

To support .scala, we need to add a sibling element similar to the one above, under the same parent element CFBundleDocumentTypes:

For simplicity's sake, I'm using the same icon file, but we can create one ourselves, copy it to TextMate.app/Contents/Resources/SCALA.icns and refer to it as SCALA in Info.plist.

Now, close TextMate if it's running, move the application TextMate.app to a different folder, and open it again. Close it, and move it back, then open it yet again. This is done so Launch Services picks up the changes to Info.plist we just performed.

The result looks like this (remember, we reused the TextMate Ada icon for .scala):

If you don't want to associate an application to open .scala files (can't imagine why, but there's a way to do this): Change the additions to the file to the following:

Now, the application declares the file type, but tells the system that it does not know how to handle it (Apple gives the example of Finder declaring font types, although it cannot open them itself).

*Note that any permanent application assignment to the file type overrides the icon, probably to the 'unknown document' kind.

If you already have an application associated with .scala, and just want to change the file icon without changing the associated application:

Osx Change Default Application For File Type

Open of the application's Info.plist, look for the file type entry in CFBundleDocumentTypes, and get the CFBundleTypeIconFile. Modify this file in .../Contents/Resources/ and it should be reflected in Finder shortly afterwards.

Bonus information:

How to change a single document's or folder's icon to an image file

Suppose you have an image ~/Desktop/test.png which you want to use an an icon (it's the screenshot used above to illustrate the .scala/TextMate/Ada icon change.

Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and enter:

This will change the test.png file icon to its image. Since I enjoy recursion, lets try this:

Before, the plain Preview png icon (image preview is deactivated):

After, the image file itself is its preview:

Now we can open the file's Get Info dialog, click the desired, future document icon on the top left, Cmd-C to copy it, open the document file's Get Info dialog, click the undesired, current document icon on the top left, and Cmd-V to paste the icon we want.

Alternatively, you can open the image file you want to use as icon in Preview, Cmd-A to select all, Cmd-C to copy the image to clipboard. Then open the target document's Get Info dialog, select the icon to change in the top left, and Cmd-V to paste the image over it.

Daniel Beck♦Daniel Beck

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You need to replace the ICNS file inside the program that is assigned as the default program for the specific file type.

Mac Change Program Default For File Type