How to Set Excel as the Default App for Spreadsheets on Mac

Microsoft Excel works great on a Mac, but sometimes spreadsheets open in other apps like Apple Numbers instead. You can fix this by telling your Mac which app to use by default and converting incompatible files.

Make Excel the Default Spreadsheet App on Mac

To change which app a particular file opens with, you must tell macOS which application to use. You'll need to do this for each file type you want to change. Some common file types that open in Numbers that you might want to associate with Excel instead include:

• XLSX --- Microsoft Excel's default file type, also used by Numbers and LibreOffice.
• XLS --- The older Microsoft Excel file type, used pre-2007.
• CSV --- Short for "comma-separated value" and often used as a container for databases.
• ODS --- An OpenDocument Spreadsheet format commonly used by LibreOffice and OpenOffice, related to the ODT file extension.
• DBF --- dBase spreadsheet files that will open in Excel but cannot be saved (you'll need to convert them).

The easiest way to do this on a Mac is to right-click (or Control+click) a spreadsheet and then select "Get Info" from the context menu that appears.

An information window will appear, and towards the bottom you will see a section titled "Open with:" which you should expand if it isn't already. The current default application will be listed.

From the drop-down box, select the application you want to use instead. In the below example, we've replaced Numbers with Excel.

Finally, click "Change All..." followed by "Continue" in the dialog box that pops up.

If the application you want to use (in this case, Excel) isn't listed in the box, you can click "Other" and then navigate to the Excel app in your Applications file. Be aware that this is often a sign that your chosen file type is not compatible with the app you have chosen.

Quickly Open Spreadsheet Files in Another App

You can also access "Open With" options using the standard right-click (Control+click) context menu. The difference here is that selecting an application won't change the default app.

This is handy if you want to open a file (like a spreadsheet) in a particular app without changing the default setting.