Applications open multiple files

Something I've noticed lately (for the past few months now, but I'm not really sure when it started) whenever I open a file like Word or Excel or even Adobe Illustrator files) by double-clicking on them, the application will also open up one or more of the previous files it had open, even if it was a duplicate.

On the last, I had an excel file I had updated at work, and emailed back to myself. I deleted the old copy, and saved the new one where it should be. When I opened it, Excel told me it was already opened, because it was also trying to open up the deleted file from the trash.

So, is there any way to prevent this from happening? Since it's application independent, I believe it must be something within Mac OS itself (I'm on Lion 10.7.3)


Eric the Grey

It's a Lion default setting. You have (I think) two options:

1. Turn it off by going to System Preferences - General - and uncheck 'Restore Windows when quitting and re-opening apps'

or, if you do not want to totally disable it

2. Hold down Shift when launching the application and it will not re-open the doc.

Pigstick said:

It's a Lion default setting. You have (I think) two options:

1. Turn it off by going to System Preferences - General - and uncheck 'Restore Windows when quitting and re-opening apps'

Click to expand...

This did the trick. Thank you for this.
I dug through the preferences for a long time, and I think that General was the one option I didn't check (of course).


Eric the Grey