Can't Make Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 Default Application in macOS Sierra

[MDahmen]

Just updated from CC 2017 to CC 2018 today. Prior to the update, CC 2017 was my default application for all PSD, JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc. files. I still have CS6 installed on my Mac and it's now the default application for these files. I can change it to Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (19.0.0.) individually for each file, but I can't to a system wide change through Finder.

When I right-click a file and choose Get Info and change Open With to Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (19.0.0.) and click Change All it immediately reverts back to CS6 as the default. But I can do the above steps on a file-by-file basis and it will stick for each file.

I restarted and zapped PRAM but it did not fix the issue. Haven't tried uninstalling CS6, but the point is I had CS6 installed along side CC 2017 and CC 2017 had no trouble being assigned the default status.

Did I find a bug in CC 2018?

[Vernox]

It seems that the most recent Photoshop will be the default. I had 2017 as the default, tried uninstalling that version to see if it would default to 2018 but now it just used the 2015.5 version as the default.

Yours

Vern

[gener7]

CC 2017 was the default after installing CC 2018, so I removed all previous versions, but opted to keep the settings. I did this using the uninstaller in the respective folders being sure I kept my preferences.

I also had 2015.5, but for some reason the 2015.5.app was not removed during uninstall, I had to drag it to the Trashcan.

That made CC 2018 the default. Then I reinstalled CC 2017 and CC 2018 stayed the default.

[katys15030138]

I'm having the exact same problem with CC 2018.  At first, it kept trying to open CC 17, and then would come up with an error that the program didn't exist, and turns out when it had uninstalled CC 17, it left a file behind.  So I deleted that file, and… Now opening files wants to open CS3 instead.

I've also tried uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop CC 18, but that didn't make a difference.

[gener7]

Have you uninstalled cs3?

[k9tag]

This is an ages old problem with the Adobe installer that they have apparently decided not to fix. The solution DOES NOT involve wasting a lot of time doing de-installations, re-installations, etc.  The solution is to edit your registry and change one character if you are upgrading from CC2017 to CC2018 on Windows 7.   Just change the 7 in 2017 to an 8 at the proper position in the registry and you will be good to go.  Editing the registry sounds scary, but I am no tech guy and I was able to apply the fix quickly.  What is the fix? It can be found in the discussion below that started at least 5 years ago that describes the detailed steps for editing the registry and changing the character.  Come on Adobe installer team, get your act together.

I cannot associate files with Adobe Photoshop CC

[name2941]

Most people experience this issue using macOS Sierra at the moment.

[MDahmen]

I ended up uninstalling Photoshop CS6 and Finder (macOS Sierra) immediately assigned CC 2018 as the default. Not sure why that was necessary this time around (it wasn't necessary in CC 2017), but I don't use Photoshop CS6 anymore so it wasn't a big loss to me.

[dugfresh36]

Thanks, this registry hack did the trick (as a Windows user)! Appreciate the post, even if it did end up under a Mac OS-oriented thread (but to be fair, an explicit search for this topic using the keywords "Windows 7" yielded this thread as my top returned search result, so... *shrug*). 

[shanlynsul]

But how do I edit the registry? That's what I can't figure out.

[Armadillo77]

I copied this from above:

This is the workaround. It's fixed it for me and others using earlier versions of OSX:

"For a workaround, browsing to about:config and setting "security.sandbox.content.level" to 2 (instead of the current default value of 3) and then restarting your browser may work. This makes the security sandbox more permissive, but doesn't completely disable it. I haven't reproduced the problem so I can't confirm if this works around the problem or not. I've tried on 10.13 and will test on some other versions."

This has nothing to  so with the Adobe PSD problem, this is where Photoshop is removed as an association for image files in OSX.

Gene

To edit the security.sandbox.content.level line, you must type about:config in the address window of your browser. You will get a warning window. If you decide to click through, search for security.sandbox.content.level, edit the number 3 to number 2 and save. Restart Firefox. This worked for me.

Hope this helps.

[gener7]

It's supposed to have been fixed in FireFox 60, so you can try dialing it back up to the default 3.

[1960sgal]

YES! Fixed with the firefox update! Hooray!

[gener7]

Thanks, I havn't had time to check it thoroughly, but that's good to know.

Gene

[emilyd825]

I have this same problem, only I am using macOS El Capitan (10.11.6) and the default application for my PSD files reverts to CC 2017. The only installed Photoshop is the new one, CC 2018. This issue is only occurring with PSD files. TIF, JPG and others will use CC 2018 as the default.

[emilyd825]

OK...so after reading more thoroughly through these posts, I ended up going through my Applications folder and decided to delete all of the old Photoshop folders. Even though they should have been inactive, something was forcing the file association for PSD files to use older versions. After trashing the old folders... I can now assign CC 2018 - and more importantly KEEP the assignment - as the default application for PSD files.

[sidcup@lineone.net]

hey , its that means its appears in select default folder ? instead of LR ?

[name2941]

@sidcup@lineone.net: Please take an other look at the topic of this issue - it's macOS related - no Windows involved.

[sidcup@lineone.net]

unfortunately nothing there , ....................... in search only this comes up !!!

[name2941]

@emilyd825: Thanks for the report - it's good to know that deleting all the old versions of photoshop will fix the issue.

Deleting old versions does not fix the problem

Just simply deleting all the old versions of Photoshop will not fix the problem itself. Many customers still work on CS5 or CS6 and they expect image editors to support these versions of photoshop. Also ... we once payed a lot of money for these apps, simply deleting them to fix this (annoying little) issue is not an option - I still hope for a real fix.

Hoping for Adobe to fix this with the next update

Looks like the problem is not exclusively related to Sierra since emilyd825 reported it on El Capitan. I hope Adobe will fix this with the next Photoshop update.

[MDahmen]

I agree that deleting prior versions is not the optimal solution and Adobe should come up with a fix. And we may just be talking semantics here, but for the record I didn't delete Photoshop CS6, I ran the uninstaller and removed all old preferences. I didn't even need to restart. Finder immediately assigned CC 2018 default status.

[sidcup@lineone.net]

finally sorted by changing photoshopCC2018.exe (from Photoshop.exe)

[dans53337281]

I had the same issue running Windows 7, this definitely fixed it.  Thanks for the tip. 

Edit:  All i had to to was change the name of the .exe file to avoid the conflict with CC 2017

[tanvira25856533]

Thanks sidcup@lineone.net

you have the most easy way to fix it...

[TheGeekGoddess]

I'm having the same problem. MacOS Sierra. Keeps defaulting to CS6 and unable to change it to set ALL PSD files to 2018. Even more annoying it does this for NEW PSDs you create with 2018 also. It doesn't matter if it is something created with 2018 or earlier -- it always defaults to CS6.

can change it file-by-file but not universally. In other words, I can right-click a PSD file, then hold down the Option key (so the fly-out menu changes to say "Always Open With"), select PS CC 2018 and it will open 2018, then continue opening with 2018. It also shows 2018 as the default for that SPECIFIC file if I do a "get info" on it. But the second I try to change ALL the PSD files to default to 2018, it reverts it back to CS6 again as the default.

For now, I'm having to right-click and select 2018 to open a file --- annoying. I hope they come out with a fix soon.