Macos – Chrome: how to open with system viewer by default

downloadfile associationgoogle-chromemacospdf

Google Chrome used to open PDFs downloaded to the hard drive using the system's default PDF viewer by default. Recent versions of Chrome use Chrome's (inferior) built-in PDF viewer by default even for downloaded files, not only online PDFs.

How can I get Chrome to open downloaded PDFs using the system's viewer by default?

This question refers to downloaded PDFs only, I want to keep using the Chrome viewer for online PDFs.

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Clicking this button on the download bar above, choosing "Open", or checking the "Always Open Files of This Type" option should invoke the system viewer, not Chrome. How can this be achieved?

Best Answer

Copy paste in chrome address bar :

chrome://flags/#out-of-process-pdf

Enable first option (don't forget to relaunch).

Related Solutions

Google-chrome – Make Chrome always open PDFs itself

The "Redirector" answer was just what I was looking for, but that extension is no longer available. So I kept digging and found Modify Content-Type. It's working as I expected (PDFs open in the internal viewer despite Content-Disposition: attachment in the response headers) with a rule of:

URL Filter:       .*
Original Type:    application/.*pdf
Replacement Type: application/pdf
Disposition:      inline

Note well that this may expose you to cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, and you would be wise not to allow .* in the URL filter. Add to it only as needed.

Google-chrome – How to open pdf in Chrome’s integrated viewer without downloading it

I think that the problem sometimes occurs when the web server you are downloading the PDF from does not serve the PDF with the correct MIME type.

When the web server serves a PDF with the correct MIME type, Chrome previews it. When the web server serves a PDF with the incorrect or generic MIME type (application/octet-stream), Chrome downloads it.

If the server returns a Content-Type of text/html Chrome will display/open the PDF directly in the browser. However, if the server returns a Content-Type of application/pdf then the browser will prompt the user to save/download the PDF.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Google-chrome – Make Chrome always open PDFs itself

Google-chrome – How to open pdf in Chrome’s integrated viewer without downloading it

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