2 Ways to Edit "Open With" List on Windows 10

Is the “Open with” list getting bigger and you want to remove some programs from it?

In this short tutorial, you will learn how to clean your “Open with” list on Windows 10 and older Windows operating systems.

We will use the Registry Editor in the first method and in the second method we will use a third-party software developed by Nirsoft, called OpenWithViewer.

Let’s go!

Remove Programs from “Open With” List on Windows 10

1. Customize “Open With” List With the Registry Editor

Start by opening the Registry Editor using the regedit command in Run.

clean remove programs open with list menu windows 10 1 regedit registry editor

Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\

Select the extension you want to edit and select the “OpenWithList” key under the extension.

For example, I want to remove VLC Media Player from the extension mp4.

clean remove programs open with list menu windows 10 2 mp4 open with vlc registry editor

Right-click on the String value with the value “vlc.exe” or your program and click “Delete“.

clean remove programs open with list menu windows 10 3 remove value registry editor

2. Disable/Enable Programs in the “Open With” List Using OpenWithView

You can download your free copy of OpenWithView from this official Nirsoft URL: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/open_with_view.html

After the downloading is complete, unzip the file and double-click on “OpenWithView.exe“.

clean remove programs open with list menu windows 10 4 openwithview

You will notice all the programs here with the state (disabled=No/Yes) and the action (open/edit).

clean remove programs open with list menu windows 10 5 openwithview nirsoft

To disable a program from the “Open with” list just select it and click the Red sphere icon or right-click and choose “Disable Selected Items“.

You can also select everything and press F8 or F7 to Disable/Enable them.