Set Outlook as Default on macOS

Hi Jason,

There is a workaround on how you can set Office 2016 as default for computers running Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10) or later version. You may try to see if this workaround works for your current build on this link. You may also see this article for future reference.

Regards.

@Dyan Rey, Neither of those actually answer my question.

The first link shows how to Make outlook the default by using the Mail application.  My question specifically states that is not an option since Mail has been disabled due to corporate policy.

The second link is a generic help page which does not discuss this topic at all.

Hi Jason,

You can use the Duti tool for this scenario. See http://duti.org for more info.

Thanks, Paul.

@Paul,

I saw that, but wasn't 100% excited to use it.  The latest release is 3 years old, it has to be compiled, as a 3rd party tool it isn't Microsoft or Apple supported, there is no lifecycle on it since it's open source, and it's something additional to deploy to all systems.

I've also seen a script which can potentially update com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist directly.  That might be better since it would be lighter to deploy.

I think I'm looking for something that doesn't exist.  i.e. a single command line to set an app as the default.  It would be nice if Microsoft would include an app with Office 2016 for Mac that could do the update like running Duti or modifying the plist can (or if Apple could create a command line for it).

Hi Jason,

Yes, it certainly would be nice if Apple provided a command-line tool for changing this.

You might have seen Rich Trouton's script at https://github.com/rtrouton/set_microsoft_outlook_as_default_application which itself includes a compiled copy of Duti. This is pretty much as good as it gets I'm afraid.

BTW - it sounds as if you're an IT admin. You might want to check out the Mac IT Admin Slack forum at https://macadmins.herokuapp.com where these sorts of issues are discussed.

Thanks, Paul.