MacOS – How to open a file in its default application from the command line in OS X

command linemacosuti

How can I open a file in its default application from the command line?

For example if I have a file foo.doc, can I type command ./foo.doc into the CLI and have that file open in Word?

Note: on my linux machine, I would use xdg-open but that doesn't work on my Mac.

Best Answer

Use:

open foo.doc

or, alternatively:

open -n foo.doc

to force it to open a new instance if one is already open for that app.

Related Solutions

Change the default application (for a file extension) via script/command line

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.

MacOS – How to properly register a file extension on mac so it will also work by running open from the command line

If you selected Always Open With from a context menu, it only changes the default application for the selected items. If you change the default application from an information window, it normally also has an immediate effect on open.

If it wasn't that, com.apple.LaunchServices.plist can also be edited as XML:

plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

Applying changes requires restarting. Logging out and back in isn't enough.

You could also try using duti or RCDefaultApp.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Change the default application (for a file extension) via script/command line

MacOS – How to properly register a file extension on mac so it will also work by running open from the command line

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