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How to see, and change, default apps on a per-file-extension basis

WolfStock

Lurker
Apr 29, 2011
7
3
I've seen a few different things written that touch on this, but nothing I can find directly answers this question.

Is there a way in Android to see - and change - what app is the current default app for handling a file based on the file's extension? By handling, I'm referring in my case to when I open the file from the My Files interface on a Samsung phone, with Android 10.

There is the Settings -> Apps -> ... -> Default apps thing, but that doesn't seem to give you the option to look based on file extension (e.g. .mp3, or .txt, .abc, or whatever). It just brings up a list of very general app categories (e.g. "browser app" or "phone a''). So - that's no help.

In Settings -> Apps -> <select app>-> Set as default you can see if it's default for some file types, but that has two problems: A) you have to know the default app ahead of time, and B) You can only do "clear defaults" for *all* defaults for that app - you can't specify it on a per-extension basis. So - that's no help.

In the My Files app if you long-click a given file it gives an option "Open With" where you can select what app opens a file - however it doesn't show you what the *default* app is. If there is no default app then it will prompt you to "open always" - this does set the default app for that file type (yay) - however this only works for extensions that don't yet have a default specified. It doesn't work for ones that already have a default, where I want to view and maybe change the default app. So - that's no help.

Any other method that I'm missing, that someone knows about that could be used?

Note: I do *not* want to have to install some new app just for this purpose. I'm hoping that there's a way to do this in Android natively, like there is in pretty much any OS.

Thanks.
 
there is no setting that i know of that will do this, other than the default app option under app settings. you would have to go app by app and look into what defaults are set and change it. maybe there might be a file manager app that might do this. but, i can't recall one at the moment.
Thanks.

Wow - really surprised there wouldn't be something for this.
 
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I had a 5-yr-old LG running Android 8. I had some very handy info in some .txt files. They opened very nicely in the default LG browser.

Then I upgraded to a Samsung running Android 13. The new phone insisted on opening my .txt files in Chrome or in the default Samsung browser. I was astonished that neither one worked.

I searched the Play Store and found a popular and free app that could open .txt files. It worked fine, but when I tried to tell my new phone to always use the new app for .txt files, I clumsily clicked on Chrome, which I DIDN'T want. Then I was stuck in the situation described in this thread, except that I knew the identity of the default app (Chrome).

I tried everything in this thread plus all of the suggestions I could find on the internet (most of which were the same thing over and over). Nothing worked.

Finally it dawned on me that under Settings > Apps > Chrome, I had the ability to Force Stop then Disable Chrome. After doing those operations, I once again opened a .txt file and once again had the option to choose either the Samsung browser or the new app I had loaded -- Chrome was no longer a choice.

This time I was very careful to select the new app for .txt files. After that I went back to Settings > Apps > Chrome and used the Enable option.

All working now! Yay!
 
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