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Forum Discussion
Can't open PDF files with new beta on my mac
Issue is that the file info says open with Dropbox, not Adobe. If I change back to Adobe then it opens. (Or if I open it from inside Adobe.) But I have hundreds of PDFs that now have the wrong app to...
Hi everyone,
Thanks for reporting this, and sorry for the inconvenience. We think we have a good idea of what is causing the issue, and we're looking into a fix.
In the meantime, the following workaround might help:- Open a Terminal window.
- Run the following command:
xattr -drv com.apple.LaunchServices.OpenWith ~/Library/CloudStorage/DropboxThis command will remove the custom "Open With" settings for all files in your Dropbox folder, including the incorrect/broken setting that is forcing some files to open with Dropbox.
It's possible that Finder won't notice the change right away, so you might need to relaunch it for that to take effect:
- Hold Control + Option and click on the Finder icon in the Dock.
- Select "Relaunch".
Ever since I downloaded the new Mac Dropbox app that was pushed out a few days ago, I'm unable to open most jpgs and pdfs from by Dropbox folder located on my desktop or from a Finder window. The file icon does that little expansion thingy as if it's opening, but the document really doesn't open. When I right click a pdf and tell it to open with Acrobat or even Preview, it says the file can't be opened because it's from an unidentified developer. I then have to right click it again and override that. If I go into my security settings, I can override that one file that wouldn't previously open. That's great and all, but I simply can't do this for thousands of files. That's unreasonable. Why can't I just double click on the file and open it like I could do before? THese are files that I've had for months or even years. Nothing has changed with them.
I'm on a 16" 2017 MacBook Pro running Mac OS Ventura 13.0.1
Thanks!
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hi b4798, I'd be more than happy to help!
When you say you have to right click on the file, and override that, what do you mean? Are these files online-only, and you change them to available offline?
Any screenshots are more than welcome here, in order for me to understand the process you follow.
Thanks a bunch!
Thanks for the reply, Megan. I mean that when I double click a pdf or jpg to normally open it from the Dropbox folder in a Mac finder window, the icon quickly expands as if the document is going to open a second later, but it never does. From that finder window, I must right click on the icon to open up another menu and tell it to open with Adobe Acrobat in order to get it to open. A simple double click that's worked for decades no longer gets the file open.
I'm trying to replicate the dialog box that that tells me that it won't open because the file is from an unidentified developer, but it won't show me that right now.
I've identified something else that's happening which I think is the root problem. When I right click a pdf and select "Get Info," the application that shows to be the one that's trying to open the pdf is Dropbox, not Adobe Acrobat. The same happens when I try and open a Word document stored on Dropbox. When I click the Dropbox selection, other apps appear that I can choose to be the default app to use for pdfs. Acrobat is listed and it surprisingly says, "default" next to it.... yet when I look at the Get Info box, "Dropbox" is already populated as the app it wants to use to open the file. Then, when I change it to open all files like that (meaning all files with the extension ".pdf"), it doesn't do that. I have to go into each individual file, open its Get Info menu, and tell it to use Acrobat to open it if it's a pdf or Preview to open it if it's a jpg.
The bottom line is that Dropbox really, really wants to be the app to open all my files even though Preview is the default jpg viewer and Acrobat is the default pdf viewer. That's despite the fact that I'm setting my preferences to make other apps the default to open those files.
I reported this problem weeks ago and have just been on to the machine I'm running the Beta on and was amazed when I clicked a few PDF's in Dropbocx folder in Finder and hey presto, they opened! Wow, it is fixed I thought. Then I tried an Excel doc, which opened in Dropbox.com, NOT Excel. Get Info>Set Default App to Excel etc...
Low and behold nothing happened and I'm back to square one. MS Docs only open in Dropbox.com (not what I want, I want them to open in the native MS Apps on my Mac and Adobe docs don't open at all... the icon quickly expands as if the document is going to open a second later, but it never does.Very slow progress DB! I've been a user for as long as I can remember Cloud File Storage being a thing and you were always streets ahead of the competition but this Beta is a mess.
