You’ll either love or hate Mac OS X Lion’s Restore feature. If you didn’t know it the Restore feature kicks in when you relaunch an app. All the windows that were open the last time you used that app are open again and restored when the app launches again.
Although Restore works great for some apps like Safari I don’t really like how it works for the Preview app. Lucky for us we can permanently turn Restore off for Preview.
Locate the Terminal app in Applications –> Utilities and launch it. Enter the following command and press enter to permanently turn Restore off for Preview:
defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false
if you change your mind later change false in the line above to true instead.
David W. Martin has more than 20 years of experience in the industry as a programmer, systems and business analyst, author, and consultant. David has written for CNET’s iPhoneatlas.com, MacLife.com, CultofMac.com, BYTE.com and recently for aNewDoman.net. He comes to Cult of Mac’s website with deep knowledge and passion for the all things Apple. Follow David on Twitter @david_w_martin or see what he’s up to now at davidwmartin.com.
15 responses to “Disable Restoration Of Previously Open Windows In The Lion Preview App [OS X Tips]”
Good.
Thank you. I’ve been waiting for this to come across the wires. I like the “Resume” feature or whatever it’s called quite a bit, but as you noted in Preview it’s more of a pain than a help. Recent Files works fine.
I absolutely despise resume. Conceptually its a nice idea, but its implementation is horrible. Each application should have a common and simple way of turning it off. For now its far more annoying to me than any perceived benefit.
Hidden settings like this is why I use the Secrets prefpane: http://secrets.blacktree.com/ Saw this article, pulled up secrets and there it was already.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I can finally get rid of that annoyance!
Or you could just turn it off within “General” in the System Preferences?
Use System Prefs and you’ll override the global function. I think the purpose of this tip is to simply shut the function off for Preview. Which is exactly what I’d like, actually. Just Preview.
Oh, man. Thank you so much. I couldn’t find the solution anywhere else!
Somehow my version of Lion pays absolutely no attention to this Sys Pref setting. Weird huh! It wouldn’t dare ignore a terminal command though.