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Accepted
Mario
Asked: 2018-10-26 06:58:21 +0800 CST

How do I (persistently) change default file/program associations in Ubuntu 18.04+?

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I am not shown the "Open with ..." tab in Files or the "Set as default ..." button anymore. This seems to be gone due to a UI change and there is an issue registered at Launchpad.

I know that tools like Ubuntu Tweak have offered such functionality in the past (it is mentioned as a solution in similar questions) but afaik Ubuntu Tweak is no more supported (i.e. not in the repo). One can use mimeopen to adjust this from the command line. And, there is a relatively complicated but generic workaround.

However, I am looking for a GUI-based way and without installing extra packages not in the default Ubuntu repos. Thanks for help!

files file-association 18.04

3 Answers

  1. As for Ubuntu 19.10, the "Set as default" button is accessible by selecting "Properties" on a file contextual menu and going to the tab "Open with".

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  2. Best Answer

    Thanks to Alvin Liang, I propose to solve this problem by

    1. installing Nemo (a fork of a former Nautilus version) via apt-get install nemo,
    2. clicking on a file of interest, choose "Open with ..." and "Other application ...",
    3. choose one of the applications in the list and click "Set as default".

    Then, you can use Nautilus again with the updated file associations. It is not the most convenient solution, however, it avoids fiddling around with config files in the back.

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  3. Go to the system configuration menu (in the top right corner menu, choose the button with the "tools" symbol on it) and choose the last item in the left menu bar (presumably "system information" in English). In the next dialogue you choose "default applications" and can choose which applications to use to handle URLs, email, calendar, music, videos and photographs. While this is not a complete answer, it may cover the most important use cases.

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