If your Mac's Open With menu in OS X Mountain Lion is packed with duplicate app entries, you are not imagining it. In my case, one app update after another kept adding the same applications back into the menu.
That turns a simple right-click menu into something you have to scroll through, which is exactly the kind of small Mac annoyance that gets old fast.
Quick Answer
The fix is to create a small Automator application that runs an AppleScript cleanup action, then relaunch Finder so the Open With menu refreshes. After that, the duplicate entries should disappear.
This is not necessarily a one-time fix. Since app updates can cause the duplicates to come back, saving the cleanup as an Automator application makes it easy to run again whenever the menu gets messy.
Why The Menu Gets Cluttered
In Mountain Lion, the Open With menu can collect repeated entries as applications are updated. Instead of showing one clean entry for an app, the menu may show the same app over and over.
In the example I tested, Evernote appeared around 14 or 15 times in the menu. That is not useful. The menu should show the real options available for that file, not a long list of duplicates.
Create The Automator App
Open Automator and choose to create a new Application. This matters because saving it as an application gives you something reusable that you can keep on the Desktop or somewhere convenient.
Inside Automator, add the Run AppleScript action. Replace the default AppleScript text with the cleanup script shown in the walkthrough, then run it from Automator to test it.
When the script runs, it may take a few seconds. You may also see the small gear icon in the menu bar while the workflow continues working in the background.
- Open Automator
- Create a new Application
- Add Run AppleScript
- Paste in the cleanup AppleScript
- Run it once to test
- Save it as an application, such as Clean Up Open With
Relaunch Finder
After the Automator cleanup finishes, relaunch Finder so the Open With menu updates.
In the video, I used Force Quit Applications, selected Finder, and clicked Relaunch. Once Finder restarted, the Open With menu was cleaned up and showed a normal list again.
- Open Force Quit Applications
- Select Finder
- Click Relaunch
- Check the Open With menu again
Keep The App For Next Time
The useful part of making this an Automator application is that you do not have to rebuild the workflow every time.
When duplicate entries return after future app updates, run the saved cleanup app again, wait for the workflow gear to finish, then relaunch Finder. In my testing, the cleanup itself only took a short amount of time.
Key Takeaways
- OS X Mountain Lion can show duplicate apps in the Open With menu after application updates.
- An Automator application can run the cleanup process whenever the menu gets cluttered again.
- Use Run AppleScript inside Automator and save the workflow as an application.
- After running the cleanup, relaunch Finder so the menu refreshes.
- Keep the saved Automator app because this problem can come back after future updates.
Watch the Video
The video above above if you want to see the Automator setup, the before-and-after Open With menu, and the Finder relaunch process step by step.
