File Associations Finder

FileAssociationsFinder is a Swift command-line utility that helps users find macOS applications capable of opening files with a specific file extension. The utility utilizes the NSWorkspace and UniformTypeIdentifiers frameworks to perform the search.

Features

• Quickly find apps that can handle a given file extension.
• Outputs full application paths for easy reference.
• Gracefully handles cases where no apps are found.

Requirements

• macOS 11.0 (Big Sur) or later.
• Swift 5.3 or later.

Installation

1. Clone the repository or copy the FileAssociationsFinder.swift file.
2. Ensure you have Xcode or Swift command-line tools installed.
3. Build the project using the Swift compiler or Xcode.

Usage

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the directory containing FileAssociationsFinder.swift.
2. Compile the program:

   swiftc -o FileAssociationsFinder FileAssociationsFinder.swift

3. Run the program with a file extension as an argument:

   ./FileAssociationsFinder <file-extension>

   Replace <file-extension> with the desired file extension (e.g., txt, png, pdf).

Example

Command:

./FileAssociationsFinder txt

Output:

/Applications/TextEdit.app
/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app

If no applications are found:

No apps found for extension txt

No argument provided:

Usage: ./FileAssociationsFinder <file-extension>

How It Works

1. The program accepts a file extension as a command-line argument.
2. It converts the extension into a Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) using UTType.
3. It queries macOS's NSWorkspace to find compatible apps.
4. Application paths are extracted from the returned URLs and displayed.

Limitations

• macOS-only utility, as it relies on macOS-specific frameworks.

License

This utility is released under the MIT License. Modify and use it freely!