utid is a command-line utility capable of setting default applications for various document types on macOS, using Apple's Uniform Type Identifiers. A UTI is a unique string describing the format of a file's content. For instance, a Microsoft Word document has a UTI of com.microsoft.word.doc. Using utid, the user can change which application acts as the default handler for a given UTI.
make
sudo make install
utid can read settings from four different sources:
-
standard input
-
a settings file
-
a MacOS XML property list (plist)
-
command-line arguments.
A settings line, as read in cases 1 and 2, consists of an application's bundle ID, a UTI, and a string describing what role the application handles for the given UTI. The process is similar when utid processes a plist. If the path given to utid on the command-line is a directory, utid will apply settings from all valid settings files in that directory, excluding files whose names begin with '.'.
utid can also print out the default application information for a given extension (-x). This feature is based on public domain source code posted by Keith Alperin on the heliumfoot.com blog.
See the man page for additional usage details.
Set Safari as the default handler for HTML documents:
% utid -s com.apple.Safari public.html all
Set TextEdit as the default handler for Word documents:
% utid com.apple.TextEdit com.microsoft.word.doc all
Set Finder as the default handler for ftp:// URLs:
% utid -s com.apple.Finder ftp
Get default application information for .jpg files:
% utid -x jpg
Preview
/Applications/Preview.app
com.apple.Preview
utid is best-effort support. You can submit bug reports and feature requests for this version of the software at the utid GitHub project page:
https://github.com/jovi/utid/
Andrew Mortensen for creating utid
Russel Hancox for maintaining utid
Nivekkagicom for expanding utid