On Macs: how do you change which folder/program your downloads open with?

Question

My friend can't download anything properly because her download setting is set to open everything with some text program or something (ie. trying to download limewire). How do you change the setting so that downloads go to a certain folder/program or onto the desktop?

We use OSx Tiger and when we click to download something it pops up in the safari downloads window and it automatically downloads whatever i'm downloading to the desktop, but for her, it downloads it to something else. Is there a settings control I can change its destination in that safari downloads box?

Answer 1

Well, you're actually dealing with two problems here.

First, let's deal with your auto open problem. I'm assuming you're using Safari, but other browsers may have similar options.

In the menu bar of Safari,
go to Safari > Preferences
click on the General tab
uncheck the box next to "Open 'safe' files after downloading"
you can change where your files are saved to next to "Save downloaded files to..." if you want

This will prevent your files from automatially opening after you download them. You can go back and re-check the box if you want, because we're going to fix the other problem next (hopefully). Apply the following concept to any file type

Click on your newly downloaded file. Go to File > Get Info (Cmd + I). It will open a pallette window. Find where it says "Open with:", where i'm guessing it says Text Edit in the box. Click on the pull-down and change it to one of the choices, or click other to find a good choice. The two I have for the Limewire download is DiskImageMounter and Disk Utility. I have set DiskImageMounter to open all my .dmg files. Once you have that set, the Change All button just below should become active. Click that button and it will change all files of that type to open with the selected application, and you're done!

A temporary solution to open a file properly is to control-click (right-click) on the files and select "Open with..." from the contextual menu, or simply drag the file and drop it onto the icon in the Dock.

Hope that works for ya!

Answer 2

when you click on "file" then to "save as" a window comes out from the top of the screen and thats were you set were everything goes.!!! Click on what folder to save it in. I usually save to documents until i need them. hope that works for you. I'm running OS X Jaguar.

Answer 3

you should set winamp to the default participant. you should replace the settings interior the downloading application to permit this or you could circulate to the shared folder and precise click the music and click "open with" and decide winamp.