Choosing the default application to open a file type

Sometimes you’ll find that when you double click on a document (for example a protein sequence) that it opens in the wrong application. Generally this has resulted from recently installing a new application that has registered itself as the default application that you normally use to open that document. This will overwrite your default application.

For example you double click on a Genbank sequence file (that has a file extension ending in “.gb”. You expect to see this sequence in MacVector, but instead it opens in some other application.

Here’s how to fix this:

  • 1 – select any of the file type you want to change (e.g the aforementioned Genbank file) and “get info” using CMD + “i” (or right click/hold down CTRL and left click, on the file and choose “get info”).
  • 2 – in the Get Info dialog move to the OPEN WITH section (as in the screenshot below).
  • 3 – Change the drop down menu to MacVector.app.
  • 4 – Click the CHANGE ALL button and reply CONTINUE on the dialog that appears.
  • Now close the Get info dialog and double click on a text file. It should now open in TextEdit.

    Screen Shot 2012 02 06 at 18 56 28

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