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Change Default Apps on Android: Everything about File Type Associations

January 6, 2014 by Saqib 2 Comments

When it comes to Android, it is by far the most customizable mobile operating system. One doesn’t even need to root the Android device to change app launcher, install APKs, and do many more tasks. Overall, it can be said that Android is a customizer and enthusiast persons delight like no other mobile OS. In this article, you’ll be learning about how to change the default app (or let’s say program) to open a file on Android.

File Type Associations on Android

Android, by default, will look for an app that can open that particular file type, just like Windows. If there are multiple apps that can open that file type then Android will present with a list of apps that can open that file. You can then select the app that you wish to use to open the file. However, if there is only one app for that file type then the user won’t be prompted with any option, and the default app will be used to open the file.

Let’s say you installed some alternative apps like MX Player and VLC for playback of video files. The next time you play any video file, Android will prompt you to pick which application you want to use for this task. You’ll get 3 choices: Video Player, MX Player or VLC Player.

default file type android

If you want to always use MX Player for this task (for example), then tap on MX Player and then on “Always.” If you tap on “Just once” then you’ll always be prompted to choose which app to use to open that file.

How to Change Default Apps on Android

Let’s say you’ve selected the “Always” option when opening a particular file type like video, image, music, etc, and now you want to open that file type with some other app. What to do now? Don’t worry, simply follow the below steps:

Step 1: Launch Settings and then tap on Apps.

Step 2: In this list, scroll down until you find the app which you want to remove from default. For example; if you want to remove MX Player from opening files by default, then find that app and tap on it. Unfortunately, there’s no ‘search’ option here which means you’ll need to find it manually.

Step 3: If the app is the default app for the file type, then you’ll see that the “Clear defaults” button will be enabled, else it will be disabled. Tap on this “Clear defaults” button to remove it as a default app to open files.

clear default app on Android

That’s all you need to do. The next time you open the same file, you’ll get a “Complete action using” dialog box. From here, select the app that you wish to use to open the file.

Hope this small guide will clear all your doubts regarding Android file type associations, and how it works.

While you’re here, check out our complete Android section.

Filed Under: Android

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Emmanuel says

    July 11, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    Hi.

    I have this android tv that has rk3188 chip.

    It an inbuilt UX player
    Along with the stock video player

    With that
    I installed my favorite:
    MX player

    There are two problems here

    First one is not so important

    If I click a video file.

    It presents the list of compatible video players

    Video player
    UX player
    MX player

    I select MX player and click always open with this.

    The video starts in MX player

    But that “always on ” never gets registered
    Tried it many times
    Next time the same menu comes up.

    2nd problem

    I selected vob file
    MX player doesn’t always work well with Vob files.

    UX player does.

    So I select UX player.
    I even clicked always on.

    It played

    And surprisingly it got registered too

    Now all video files are being played by UX player only.

    It’s not even prompting for the player selection menu

    I want to dissociate the file association with UX player.

    And the main problem

    I can’t find UX player in the app list in settings

    Reply
    • Saqib says

      July 12, 2016 at 5:10 pm

      That’s a strange problem. Perhaps you can try searching Google, or ask the question directly to the manufacturer of your Android TV

      Reply

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