In our example above, we are just switching the default image viewer for JPG files, but you’ll need to repeat the process for other files such as GIF, PNG, PDF, etc., depending on your preferences, of course. Click Continue.Ĥ) Depending on your needs, you might have to repeat the process with different file types. Assuming you want to apply the change to all similar file types, click Change All to open all documents like this one with the selected application in the future.ģ) You will be asked to confirm the change. It could be Photoshop, or in my case, it is Pixelmator. Under the Open With dropdown menu, select the application you want to use as default. Alternatively, you can simply right-click on the file and select Get Info.Ģ) The Info panel will open with various details about the image.

Once it is selected, hit Command + I on your keyboard to bring up the Info panel. How to stop using Preview as the default photo viewerġ) Click to select an image file you want to open with a different photo viewer or editor. Or maybe you want Pixelmator to be that go-to app.įortunately, you can easily change the default image viewer on your Mac.

For example, you might want to make Photoshop your default image viewer and editor. As useful as it is, some users with specific needs will find this behavior more of an annoyance than a helpful feature and would like to default to other apps for opening images. It is, for many, a staple.īeing the default photo viewer, Preview will automatically launch if you open any image or PDF document on your Mac. Preview does many things on top of letting you view, edit, and annotate images and PDF documents, Preview can also import and export documents to various file formats. The default image viewer on Mac is Preview, a stock macOS app that actually originated at NeXT.

How to use preview mac os x