How to unlink a file type in OS X

For every application installed on your Mac, OS X will scan its document-handling capabilities and store them in its Launch Services database, which it then uses to pair up document types with the applications that are built to handle them. Therefore, if you install a new image-handling tool on your system, when you right-click image files or get information on them you should see this program be available in the "Open With" section as an optional handling program.

This service is convenient for ensuring that documents can be opened directly from the Finder; however, it assumes you always want to have a specific handling program launch when you open one of these documents. While this may be true in some cases, you may have some instances where you would like the system to not automatically open specific file types, or at least ask you whether you would like to do so with a given application.

MacFixIt reader Dave recently wrote in with such a situation:

I know how to change the program associated with a particular file type that will automatically open when you click the file name. But, how do you change that association to "null"? I am constantly moving JPEG files around, and I don't want any program to open when I click to select a group. I would like to have to manually select the "open with" program to open a JPEG.

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by Topher Kessler via CNET How To