How to replace TextEdit in OSX

Ever gotten annoyed at how TextEdit will turn your double quotes into smart quotes?  I finally got fed up and switched my default text editor.  Here’s how:

1. download a new text editor.  In this example I’ll use Text Wrangler

2.  Open terminal. Then type this in:

osascript -e ‘id of app “TextWrangler”‘

3. It should come back with the bundle id of the new editor app you want to replace TextEdit with,  something like:

com.barebones.textwrangler

4. Now type this in terminal

defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSHandlers -array-add \ ‘{LSHandlerContentType=public.plain-text;LSHandlerRoleAll=com.barebones.textwrangler;}’

5. reboot.  Replace the bundle id with your favorite text editor if TextWrangler is not the one you want to use

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