Set SublimText 3 as default app for files without extension

Question

Files without extension always open in TextEdit ... I want them to open in SublimText 3

I tried to change my com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist, but simply adding public.text did not work ...

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 27 '22 at 09:08

7

The solution was doing it with public.data

Go to ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices
Open com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist with Xcode
Add this :

Save & Reboot

Another way to do it

Without Xcode
Working on macOS Mojave
With Sublime Text 4

Convert binary plist to xml plist (for easy editing)

plutil \
-convert xml1 \
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist \
-o ~/Desktop/plist.xml

Open plist.xml (on your Desktop) with Sublime Text

Add inside <array>

<dict>
    <key>LSHandlerContentType</key>
    <string>public.data</string>
    <key>LSHandlerPreferredVersions</key>
    <dict>
        <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
        <string>-</string>
    </dict>
    <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
    <string>com.sublimetext.4</string>
</dict>

Convert back from XML to binary plist

plutil \
-convert binary1 \
~/Desktop/plist.xml \
-o ~/Desktop/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist

Move the new com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist, from your Desktop to ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/

mv ~/Desktop/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist \
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/

Reboot

You can also use Sublime package Plist Binary or BinaryPlist instead of manually converting from binary to XML

edited Jan 27 '22 at 09:08

Yaroslav Boichuk

103

answered Oct 01 '17 at 21:47

Santa Claus

231

1

A .plist file can be edited with any text editor, such as SublimeText, for instance! ;) – Thecafremo Oct 01 '17 at 22:42
@Thecafremo, The com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist file is a binary plist file and while Sublime Text can open it, it does so in hex mode and as such cannot be edited in the manner proposed in this answer. If it was an XML plist file, then it could. – user3439894 Oct 02 '17 at 18:54
@user3439894 Weird. TextMate will open it, and make it readable, without a problem. – Thecafremo Oct 03 '17 at 16:26
@Thecafremo, I have Sublime Text 2, so maybe they improved it in version 3. – user3439894 Oct 03 '17 at 16:30
Nope. Sublime 3 still opens it in hex mode :/ – Shannon Scott Schupbach Jul 26 '19 at 21:44
1

@Thecafremo You can run plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist to edit it in Sublime or Vim. Source – Max Coplan Oct 14 '19 at 21:07
2

There's a Sublime package called BinaryPlist that does automatic conversion between binary and plain text. – Joel Mellon Jan 09 '20 at 23:38

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 30 '20 at 11:11

Copy paste script (working with catalina):

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices/com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist LSHandlers -array-add '{LSHandlerContentType=public.plain-text;LSHandlerRoleAll=com.sublimetext.3;}' '{LSHandlerContentType=public.unix-executable;LSHandlerRoleAll=com.sublimetext.3;}'

This sets the default to Sublime Text 3. If you want to have any other app you have to simply replace com.sublimetext.3 with the app id of your favorite app.

Set SublimText 3 as default app for files without extension

2 Answers2