How to prevent Preview from opening files when it launches
Quit Preview.
Navigate to ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState/
Quick way to get there…
- From Finder...
Cmd ⌘ N for new window
Cmd ⌘ Shift ⇧ G for Go To…
Copy/paste
~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState/- Hit Enter
Delete the entire contents of the com.apple.Preview.savedState folder.
Late Edit: I've noticed the Preview saved state folder is now an alias in more recent OSes; in which case when deleting the contents, don't also delete the alias.
The original is in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Preview.savedState
There are two options for doing this without having to touch config files:
- To do this one time only, you can hold down Shift ⇧ while opening any app to temporarily disable the "reopen windows on launch" feature
- To disable this behavior for all apps indefinitely, open System Preferences, go to General, and check "Close windows when quitting an app" near the bottom.