GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 337289
Can't delete file associations
Last modified: 2008-02-10 21:19:36 UTC
Applications register themselves with nautilus as being capable of opening certain file types. There is no way to delete this association. I *can* delete associations that I enter myself. The problem is that some applications don't clean up after themselves when they're removed, leading to duplicate entries in the 'open with' menu when right-clicking on a file. For example, I'm starting to amass quite a number of associations for The Gimp. I'd like to delete all but one, so my 'open with' list look sane. Other information: Perhaps instead of completely blocking users from deleting application-set associations, we could allow users to delete them, but provide a confirmation dialog or something? I *used* to be able to delete all associations.
Right click a file where you want to remove an application, click "Properties". "File Properties" => "Open With" tab => "Remove" button.
Yes that's exactly where I went. The button's greyed out. It's only active for associations that *I've* added. Associations that *applications* have added themselves are 'locked in' via the 'remove' button being greyed out.
Why do you want to remove existing applications from this list? Are the associations erroneous?
To be more precise: > The problem is that some applications don't clean up after themselves when they're removed How did you install these applications? Are their global .desktop files still around?
As noted in the original bug report, I'm trying to remove duplicate entries. Every time I upgrade particular applications, they add another entry for themselves. When I right-click on an image file and say 'open with', I don't want it to say: Open with "The GIMP" Open with "The GIMP" Open with "The GIMP" Open with "The GIMP" Open with "The GIMP" Open with "photoprint" Open with "hugin" I installed the gimp from sources. I did a 'make uninstall' before installing the new version. Whether this is *caused* by an application or not doesn't change the nature of this feature request - ie it doesn't matter how the entry got there. I want to remove it, and the 'remove' button is greyed out. As for a .desktop file - I have no idea what that is. This morning I decided enough was enough and deleted my .gnome* .gconf* and .nautilus* folders. Perhaps there were .desktop files in there - it's too late to tell now. Deleting all these folders has fixed things.
Hrm if deleting these dotfiles helped something odd happened. You should rather have been able to fix it by deleting ~/.local/share/applications. Maybe you could check back whether that directory contains some suspicious entries? > Whether this is *caused* by an application or not doesn't change the nature of this feature request - ie it doesn't matter how the entry got there. Being able to remove MIME associations (i.e. files that are found in XDG_DATA_DIRS rather than XDG_DATA_HOME) IMHO isn't very useful usually. I've never run into your problems, I usually have an /opt directory which I add manually to XDG_DATA_DIRS, so that the /opt entries simply override those from /usr.
I just checked on my work PC. I was able to reproduce the the multiple entries by uninstalling and re-installing The Gimp again. There is nothing in ~/.local/share/applications about The Gimp. See the screenshot at: http://www.nusconsulting.com.au/internal/multiple_gimp_entries.jpg
This is still causing me considerable grief. When updating applications ( in particular The Gimp ), I'm still getting duplicate associations. Another screenshot is at: http://www.nusconsulting.com.au/internal/bad_association_list.png The worst bit is that the 1st entry for The Gimp is broken - using it doesn't fire up The Gimp. The 2nd entry is OK. I can switch between entries, sure, but really I should be able to delete the 1st entry ... or even better ... it shouldn't be there to start with. And since Gnome is catering to GUI-only users ( or at least it should be ) at the very least there should be a simple way to 'fix' this via a GUI interface - for example the 'Remove' button in the above screenshot should be enabled. My .local/share/applications folder doesn't have anything about The Gimp in it: dan@dkasak ~/.local/share/applications $ ls -la total 77 drwx------ 2 dan users 616 Sep 13 13:58 . drwx------ 3 dan users 80 Nov 9 2004 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 188 Apr 11 15:02 defaults.list -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 131 Apr 22 2005 entice-usercreated.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 6128 Feb 21 2006 file-roller-usercustom.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 124 Mar 15 2005 firefox.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 5860 Apr 29 2005 gedit-usercustom-1.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 6245 Aug 21 15:15 gedit-usercustom-2.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 5860 Apr 29 2005 gedit-usercustom.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 2718 May 27 2005 glade-2-usercustom.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 489 Sep 13 13:58 mimeinfo.cache -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 175 Nov 12 2004 swriter2.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 4151 Nov 3 2005 textdoc2-usercustom.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 131 Sep 13 13:58 tnef-usercreated.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 124 Nov 15 2004 xine.desktop -rw-r--r-- 1 dan users 158 Nov 12 2004 xoowriter1.desktop dan@dkasak ~/.local/share/applications $ grep imp * dan@dkasak ~/.local/share/applications $
Closing as OBSOLETE, as I can't reproduce this with 2.21.90 and the whole handling of file association has been rewritten using GAppInfo. Please open a new bug under the GIO section or reopen this one if you can still reproduce this bug in recent (>=2.21) versions of Nautilus.
*** Bug 351052 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***