How to Set Default Apps on Windows
When you click a link or open a photo and the wrong app appears, Windows is using a default app you did not choose. Changing defaults takes a minute per app type, and once set, files and links open where you expect them to, every time.
Follow these steps
- Open Default apps settings. Open Settings, then Apps, then Default apps. This screen lists common app types, such as browser, and lets you search for any file type, such as a photo or document format.
- Set your default browser. At the top of Default apps, choose your preferred browser, or search for it, and set it as the default for web links and common web file types. Windows may ask you to confirm; choose to keep your choice.
- Set defaults by file type. Search for a file type, such as PDF or JPG, in Default apps, and choose which app should open it. This is useful when a photo opens in an editor you never use, but you would rather it opened in a simple viewer.
- Set defaults by app. Select an app in Default apps, such as your photo viewer or music player, and review which file types it handles. This view makes it easy to give one app all the file types it should own, in one place.
- Check links open where you expect. After changing a default, click a link or open a file of that type and confirm the right app opens. If Windows asks again, it may be because a new app was installed and claimed that file type.
- Revisit defaults after installing new apps. New apps sometimes set themselves as the default during installation. If a file suddenly opens in a new app, return to Default apps and set your preference back; your choice is not permanent, and neither is theirs.
What NOT to do
- Delete the app Windows keeps opening instead of changing the default. Deleting is drastic, and the next app in line may be no better.
- Change defaults inside every app's own settings one by one. The Default apps screen in Settings is the central place, and using it avoids conflicting choices.
- Download a default-app manager tool. Windows already provides this setting, and extra tools add nothing but another program to maintain.
- Set a default for every file type at once. Change only the types you actually open, such as browser, photos, and documents, and leave the rest alone.
Once links open in your browser of choice and photos and documents open where you want them, you are done. If a default changes on its own later, it is almost always a newly installed app, and the fix is the same one-minute change in Default apps.