Prevent Preview From Opening Files In iOS 26

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can set the default app for opening a file type in the Files app on your iPhone. So one of the new things we got in iOS 26 was the Preview app. The Preview app is an app that was already on the Mac that allows you to open, view, and make some changes to PDFs and image files. It's a very useful utility that Mac users love, and now we finally have it on the iPhone and iPad. But some users were surprised by this change, particularly how when you would tap an image or a PDF file on the Files app, it would switch from the Files app to Preview, so opening the file and then allowing you to view it and work with it in the Preview app. If that's not what you want, you have a few options. For instance, here I've got a folder filled with files in the Files app, and I have an image right here. If I just tap on that image, you can see how it opens up the Preview app, and now I'm viewing the image in Preview. If I view the app switcher here, you can see this is in Preview, and Files is left behind right here under it. It's pretty easy to switch back to Files. I can just tap here at the top left where it says Files, and I'm back here. The same thing happens with PDFs, since Preview handles both image files and PDFs. But I know a lot of people want to just quickly see the image or PDF. They don't necessarily want to open it up in Preview. Well, one way to do it without making any changes is to simply tap and hold an image like that, and then you'll see an option here, Quick Look. If you tap that, you'll Quick Look the file, just like you did before iOS 26. You could tap here and do various things while still in the Files app. You could tap X, and you simply return here to the list of files. You could do the same thing with a PDF file. Here's a PDF, for instance. If I tap on it normally, you can see how it opens up in Preview. I can go back to Files here, but if I tap and hold, I can select Quick Look, and now I'm viewing it like I was before iOS 26 in the Files app. I still have options here. I got the three buttons here. I can fill in form. I can mark it up. I can view the table of contents, if there is any for the PDF, and I can exit out of it, the whole time staying in the Files app, just like it worked before the Previews app. Now, let's say you want to make this the default behavior. Well, you can if you go here to an image. Let's use this image again here, and tap and hold it. It'll show that menu, and there's Quick Look, but there's also Open With, and I can use Open With and choose from sometimes a list of different apps that will handle this kind of file. In this case, I just see Preview, but also I see Preview with Quick Look. I can use this, and I've now set this file so that when I tap it, it just does that Quick Look Preview like before, but it's not just for that file. It's for any file of the same kind. So here's another image. If I tap that, then that one will also open up in the Files app like before. Matter of fact, if I tap and hold this here, and I select Open With, you can see the checkmark there next to Preview with Quick Look. If you find these videos valuable, consider joining the more than 2,000 others that support MacMost at Patreon. You get exclusive content, course discounts, and more. You can read about it at macmost.com slash Patreon. Now this will happen with any of that kind of file. In other words, images, not just JPEGs. Like I have a PNG file right here. If I tap and hold, and I look at Open With, you can see the checkmark next to Preview with Quick Look, and sure enough, tapping that will just open that up still in the Files app. PDFs will not change. That's a different kind of file. So if I tap on this PDF here, you can see it still opens up in Preview. No problem. I'll just go back here, and I will tap and hold the PDF here. I will go to Open With, and I will switch PDFs to also open using Quick Look inside the Files app. So now this PDF opens up here in Files, but also another PDF, like this one right here, this is also set to open up here in Files. I still can open up any image and any PDF I want in Preview by tapping and holding here, and then I could switch back using Open With, but I could also tap Share, like that, and tap Preview here in the list. The same thing with images. I can tap and hold. I still have Open With, but I can also share and then use Preview. This will work with other file types as well. For instance, here's a text file, and if I look at Open With using this text file, you can see I've got various options, including just opening it in Pages. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.