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Setting a default application on DICE

On DICE some types of files - for instance PDF documents - have a default application. This is the application that will be used when you click on the icon for a file or open a file that your web browser cannot view directly. If you don't like the default, it can be changed. This page explains how to do that.

Find out the MIME type

Each file has a "MIME type". To find out what it is, start a terminal window and type mimetype and the name of the file. For example:

$ mimetype guide.pdf
guide.pdf: application/pdf

In this example, the MIME type of a PDF document is application/pdf.

Find the default application

To find out the default application for a particular MIME type, use gio mime. For instance:

$ gio mime application/pdf
Default application for “application/pdf”: org.gnome.Evince.desktop
Registered applications:
	org.gnome.Evince.desktop
	gimp.desktop
	google-chrome.desktop
	inkscape.desktop
	libreoffice-draw.desktop
	pdfarranger.desktop
	display-im6.q16.desktop
Recommended applications:
	org.gnome.Evince.desktop
	gimp.desktop
	google-chrome.desktop
	inkscape.desktop
	libreoffice-draw.desktop
	pdfarranger.desktop
	display-im6.q16.desktop

Set the default application

You can also use gio mime to change the default application - for example:

$ gio mime application/pdf gimp.desktop
Set gimp.desktop as the default for application/pdf
Last reviewed: 
08/07/2022

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