How to Change The Default Application In macOS
In macOS each file type is opened automatically by a default application. This short blog post will explain how you can change the default application a file opens with.
When using the macOS Screenshot application, screenshots are saved as PNG images (.png files) by default. This hack will show you how you can change this default file type.
Change Default File Type
Open Terminal: Finder > Applications > Utilities
In Terminal, type or paste one of the following…
JPG Joint Photographic Experts Group [raster format]defaults write com.apple.screencapture type JPG
PDF Portable Document Format [vector format]defaults write com.apple.screencapture type PDF
PNG Portable Network Graphics [raster format]defaults write com.apple.screencapture type PNG
TIFF Tagged Image File Format [raster format]defaults write com.apple.screencapture type TIFF
(return)
Dates posted and updated.
Originally posted 27 April, 2025.
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