Help with Quick Look feature

[otaviosantos]

Hi folks,

Somehow I made VLC my default player for the Quick Look feature. Now every time I select an audio file and hit the space bar it opens through VLC, which I don't want to. How do I turn it back to the default and lighter preview of Quick Look?
It looks silly, but I still didn't figure out a solution.

Thanks!!

Mac Pro OS 10.11.6 El Capitan
Quad Core, 2.66 Intel Xeon
16GB 1066 DDR3 ECC

 

[vkd]

Highlight an audio file in Finder and right-click on it. From the popup menu choose Open With > Other...

This will open a popup selector window from which you choose the application you want to be the default for opening that type of file, make sure you check the box labeled Always Open With.

Alternatively you can right-click on an audio file, choose Get Info and then carry out the same basic procedure from there, only this time you will have an option to "Use this application to open all documents like this one", you just click the button Change All... and you are done. I presume this gives the same result as the Always Open With checkbox in the first solution.

 

[otaviosantos]

Thanks for the response!
I actually did it already. The problem is that after opening the popup selector there is no option that brings me back to the original Quick Look feature. There are a bunch of other software, but not the original preview feature. It seems the original Quick Look is not a software, and that's the reason I suppose this procedure doesn't solve the problem, once it just allow me to designate another software as my default player instead of VLC, but not the original feature

 

[GGJstudios]

Did you try checking /Library/QuickLook to see what's there? If there's a plugin for VLC player, just delete it.

 

[vkd]

Quick Look has certain capabilities coded into it, for instance it will give a quick listen to an MP3 file but not a FLAC file. It will open .gifs and .jpg images but there are others it won't open. Doesn't seem to be any way to amplify Quick Look's abilities, if there is we need an expert on this thread to help us

 

[GGJstudios]

Quick Look has certain capabilities coded into it, for instance it will give a quick listen to an MP3 file but not a FLAC file. It will open .gifs and .jpg images but there are others it won't open. Doesn't seem to be any way to amplify Quick Look's abilities, if there is we need an expert on this thread to help us

You can add plugins to enable Quick Look to preview various types of files. These plugins are added in the folder I mentioned in my previous post.

More info: https://www.fonepaw.com/eraser/optimize-preview-mac-quicklook-plugins.html

 

[otaviosantos]

Did you try checking /Library/QuickLook to see what's there? If there's a plugin for VLC player, just delete it.

Well, there is nothing related to VLC there
[doublepost=1518275185][/doublepost]

You can add plugins to enable Quick Look to preview various types of files. These plugins are added in the folder I mentioned in my previous post.

More info: https://www.fonepaw.com/eraser/optimize-preview-mac-quicklook-plugins.html

Actually I just want to restore the defaut functions of Quick Look, not improve its capabilities. Something like "reset to factory settings"

 

[organicCPU]

The problem is a little more difficult. Quick Look plugins not only exist in Quick Look plugin folders, but also possibly in any app package. The easiest solution is probably to open the VLC app package, search for the Quick Look plugin and delete it to revert to the state before. More complex analysis and setup can be done with qlmanage. See the manual pages in Terminal or start with entering the following command for an overview of what exactly happens on your Mac regarding Quick Look plugins:

qlmanage -m

 

[otaviosantos]

Well, I deleted VLC. What happened is that now when I press the space bar over the intended file it opens automatically with Itunes instead of the old Preview. It seems that the default Quick Look function doesn't exist in my computer anymore. Any ideas?

 

[vkd]

Can you Quick Look a .pdf file or a .jpg image file? Is it .mp3 files that are causing the difficulty or are there other file types that Quick Look does not operate correctly on?

 

[GGJstudios]

Well, I deleted VLC. What happened is that now when I press the space bar over the intended file it opens automatically with Itunes instead of the old Preview. It seems that the default Quick Look function doesn't exist in my computer anymore. Any ideas?

This may or may not help: https://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-fix-a-malfunctioning-os-x-quicklook-feature/

 

[organicCPU]

Are you sure that Quick Look is using iTunes for the preview?

Don't get confused with the Quick Look preview itself and the Open with... feature inside the Quick Look preview.
The Open with... app is set like @vkd wrote in post #2 and refers to launchd. Fixing that if problems arise is something different.

The app responsible for the Quick Look preview itself is chosen in the order listed in the output of qlmanage -m. This should be the standard for movies:

public.movie -> /System/Library/QuickLook/Movie.qlgenerator

If you didn't restart or logout and login after trashing VLC, you can force reloading the QL generators list by

qlmanage -r

However, there was no need to trash VLC completely, trashing the Quick Look folder inside the VLC app package (Finder -> right click -> Show package contents) is all you need to get rid of a specific Quick Look generator provided by an installed app.

EDIT:
This should be the standard Quick Look generator for audio files:

public.audio -> /System/Library/QuickLook/Audio.qlgenerator

 

[otaviosantos]

Can you Quick Look a .pdf file or a .jpg image file? Is it .mp3 files that are causing the difficulty or are there other file types that Quick Look does not operate correctly on?

Jpeg files as well as pdfs are okay. The problem is only with mp3 or Wav files

 

[vkd]

Jpeg files as well as pdfs are okay. The problem is only with mp3 or Wav files

Have you gone through the suggested procedures and changed all the application association with those filetypes?