How do I open lots of Preview windows on macOS Monterey?

Question

Level 1

4 points

How do I open lots of Preview windows on macOS Monterey?

I have about 30 pdf files, and I would like to open them all in Preview, one per window. I can bring up Finder, then click on each pdf file. For the first 14-15 files, each click brings up a new window, just as I want. But after that, each click just opens the clicked file inside the last Preview window. Why is this, and how can I get around this limit?

I'm running macOS 12.4 (Monterey) on a MacBook Air. I am logged in as an Admin user, my normal login. For comparison, I tried opening new Finder windows, and got to about 35 before I got bored and stopped. Also, my Preview preferences include "When opening files: Open each file in its own window". I ran "ulimit -a" and the limits there seem very generous. I also ran "open -a Preview *.pdf" on a command line, and got the same result (after closing all of the existing Preview windows). I even logged out as myself, and repeated the same experiment as Guest (not Admin); same result.

MacBook, macOS 12.3

Posted on May 16, 2022 11:38 PM

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Answer 1

ku4hx

Level 7

23,586 points

May 17, 2022 5:26 AM in response to HalPri

I highlight the first, shift highlight the last and do an Open With > Preview. They all open ... cascade like in separate windows.

I just did 40 something that way.

Monterey 12.4 but all the others worked the same.

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Answer 2

May 17, 2022 12:16 AM in response to HalPri

I have no solution to offer – just to confirm the Preview's behavior: 14/15 PDFs are opened in separate windows. Any other PDF is opened in tabs.

I even tried to open just 14 files at the same time and then another extra bunch of files: same result, the extra files are appended in tabs to the last opened window.

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Answer 3

May 17, 2022 4:38 AM in response to HalPri

This is really weird. I tried to open 35 files at once.

The first 14 opened each in its own window, and the rest of them all opened as tabs in the 15th window.

The weirdest thing, though: in the Window menu, I can see 35 entries, and if I select one it brings it forward; if it is one of the 21 in tabs, it makes that window active and selects the proper tab.

To be clear, this is NOT how the Window menu normally behaves - for example, in Safari have 5 windows and dozens of tabs in all, and only 5 entries (one per window, not tab) in the Window menu. That is the normal behavior in any application (also, for example, in the Finder). Why Preview is behaving in this nonstandard way is beyond me, but it does seem to be a bug.

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Answer 4

May 17, 2022 6:41 AM in response to Marco Klobas

Marco Klobas wrote:

In the screenshot provided by ku4hx it's evident that the last opened window (the 14th PDF – 2021 Medicare Handbook.pdf) contains many other PDFs opened in tabs.

You're right, of course. I was reading his post on my iPhone and did not notice the image. It shows that in his system, after all, it is doing the same thing.

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Answer 5

HalPri Author

Level 1

4 points

May 17, 2022 5:28 PM in response to HalPri

OP here. I talked to someone at Apple support who seemed to understand the problem. She couldn't find any solution or any previous report of the same issue. She suggested I fill in the form at apple.com/feedback, which I did.

There is a setting in System Preferences -> General about preferring tabs when opening documents. My setting was "in full screen", but changing this to "never" had no effect on the problem.

I find it hard to believe that this problem has been around forever. Surely someone would have noticed it! On the other hand, it's also hard to believe that someone would code a 15-window limit. Perhaps the limit is not intentional, but just the result of some other misstep.

Thanks for the help, everyone. The software was prompting me to mark a response "Helpful", but I thought they were all pretty helpful, so I went to mark them all, and only then discovered that I could only do this once. My apologies for not knowing the protocol.

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Answer 6

May 17, 2022 6:05 AM in response to ku4hx

That is how it’s supposed to work, of course. For some reason, for me as well as the OP, it starts that way but then puts the rest of the pdf in tabs.

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Answer 7

May 17, 2022 6:12 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

In the screenshot provided by ku4hx it's evident that the last opened window (the 14th PDF – 2021 Medicare Handbook.pdf) contains many other PDFs opened in tabs.

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Answer 8

May 17, 2022 6:54 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

I tried to search a Preview's preference file to look, in case, at a possible setting regarding the number of managed windows/documents and I couldn't find a preference file at all.

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How do I open lots of Preview windows on macOS Monterey?

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