Press "Enter" to skip to content

Getting Mac EndNote to open .enw files by default

How is that for a niche SEO headline?

When I migrated to a new MacBook Air – for some reason EndNote would not open citation files (.enw) by default. The trick is supposed to be ‘right click on the document to select and set the default app.’

EndNote would seem to be set as default, but it would still not open automatically when downloading the citations from Google Scholar. There also seem to be some issues with the .enw files appearing to the Mac as an application, so were blocked by the Mac Gatekeeper security settings.

I am running Mac 10.13.3 and EndNote 7.8 so your mileage may vary. But if you have Homebrew installed – this seems to be an easy fix:

#Install the command line tool to set application defaults
#Details here: http://brewformulas.org/Duti
$ brew install duti
#Find the app bundle ID of EndNote.
#Change your version number to 'X8' as needed
$ osascript -e 'id of app "EndNote X7"'
#Mine reported com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote
#As a precaution let 'scholar.enw' files avoid security
#I always replace the file rather than iterating the name.
$ sudo spctl --add ~/Downloads/scholar.enw
#Finally, set EndNote to open .enw files automatically.
$ duti -s com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote .enw all
#Check to confirm
$ duti -x enw
#The result should be something like:
#EndNote x7
#/Applications/EndNote X7/EndNote X7.app
#com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote