Assigning Files To Different File Types Apps Is One Of The Best Things About Ios 26
iOS26 is out, and it came with a new nice feature. Just like with Windows & MacOS, iOS 26 now allows you to designate an app to open any type of file. For example. you can assign a certain app to open PDF files, and another one to open MP3 files. This makes iOS acts in a similar fashion to desktop operation system, and allows you to browse open files easily from the files app.
You can use that feature to open the next episode of your favorite show from files, and it will open in your app of choice. This is useful if the video player doesn’t support playlists. To be able to do this, you will need to have iOS 26 (or iPadOS 26, in case of iPad). The app in question needs to support this feature, as well.
Quickly go to:-
Set A Default App For Opening Files On Iphone Or Ipad (Ios 26 Or Ipados 26)
First, open the files app:-
Go to the file type you want to change the default app for. e.g. if you want to change the default app to open a MP3 file, then browse to a folder where you have an MP3 file. We are going to use JPEG image file of a cat here:-
Touch and hold the file, then select “Get Info”
A small window open that shows you information about that file type. This includes the file size, type, icon & other stuff. The “Always Open With” is the one we are concerned with. Select that one.
Next, you get a list of the apps that support opening that file, select the one you want to always open that file type with:-
After that you get a dialog asking you whether you want to open all the files of that type with that app, or only the single file we just selected. Pick the behavior you want, we will select “Always Open JPEG image Files” for the purpose of this tutorial:-
Now we are done. Click the blue open button to open the file, which will open it in the app you just selected. Now, every time you tap on a file of that type in the Files app, it will open in that app you selected.
Press the checkmark at the corner to close the File Info window.
In Case This Didn’t Work
Say you followed all the steps above, and the file still opened in Files instead to the app we selected. That’s tends to happen when the “Quick Look” feature of the file app is checked. Here are the steps to disable that:-
First, tap & hold the file of the type you want to disable the Quick Look for.
From the menu that appears, tap “Open With”.
You get a menu of the apps you could use to always open that file. This is another way to assign an app to open a certain file app, but that’s not what we are trying to do here.
At the bottom of the “Open With” menu, if the “Preview with Quick Look” is checked, tap on it to uncheck it.
Now Quick Look is disabled. Try opening the file again from the files app again. It will likely work for any JPEG file (or any other file extension you changed the default app for).
And Finally
iOS is slowly becoming a more versatile operating system. While there are a number of features I want them to add, we are slowly getting there. It’s now easier to browse & view files in a similar fashion to what we do on PC, which is what I personally prefer.
I hope this tutorial was easy to follow, and that you managed to change the default app to open the various file types. Feel free to check the iOS apps I developed, which I hope you will like.
See you in another article.