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How can I change my default text editor from gedit to Emacs?

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12 Answers 12

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104

Here is what worked in my case:

  1. Right click on a text file.
  2. Choose "Properties" (not "Open With...")
  3. Click on the "Open With" tab.
  4. Choose your new text editor.
  5. Mark chosen text editor using a button "Set as default".

This also works on 12.04 and 13.04.

@ Edit: based on comments it does work on all distros until 20.04

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  • It does not work on 13.04. After Step 3, I see a lot of choices, but not the editor I would like to have .... of course, the idea would be to use 'Add' ... but this is grayed out and can't be selected. Argh – Marius Hofert May 23 '13 at 15:24
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    worked for me on 13.10 (replaced gedit with geany) – Alexander Malakhov Jan 29 '14 at 9:35
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    Works on 16.04 too! – Dženan Sep 5 '16 at 15:02
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    Also works on 17.04 – Jonas Dahlbæk Jul 25 '17 at 15:38
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    Also works on 18.04 – AlainD Aug 15 '19 at 9:31
45

To change default text editor across the file types, try updating gnome-text-editor configuration. 

sudo update-alternatives --config gnome-text-editor

In some cases:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor
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15

A more robust solution would be to replace the bindings in /usr/share/applications/defaults.list. 

sed -i 's/gedit/emacs/' /usr/share/applications/defaults.list
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  • I don't know how, but by copying this command I accidentally cleared the whole file. I would much prefer doing this in a text editor using find-replace (as explained in this answer) for those who are not too familiar with sed. – metakermit Apr 5 '13 at 22:37
  • I did this (in a text editor with find-replace, which should have the same result), then logged out and back in but still C++ header files (*.h) are opened in gedit. – Stefan Monov Dec 14 '16 at 15:06
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Right click on a text file, point to "Open With" and it'll show other editors in a sub-menu. Click on "Other Application...". It'll show you a dialog with a list of applications, select Emacs and make sure the "Remember this application for "plain text document" file" option is checked. Click "Open".

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    I did try this, but I'm having a bit of a problem - whenever I double-click on a file in Nautilus, I get a dialog box that says: "Do you want to run "tasks.css", or display its contents? "tasks.css" is an executable text file." And then there are four options - Run in Terminal, Display, Cancel, Run. (This happens with every file, not just CSS files.) – begtognen Nov 16 '10 at 12:05
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    @begtognen: Sorry for the ultra-late reply. But I've been trying to find a solution for this myself. Just found one - go to Nautlius preferences (Edit > Preferences), select the "Behavior" tab and under the "Executable Text Files" section, select the radio button "View executable text files when they are opened". Fixed the issue for me. – Mussnoon Nov 22 '10 at 23:28
  • I tried this also, but Emacs doesn't appear in the list of applications. Any thoughts? – MTS Apr 1 '14 at 19:44
  • No "Remember this application" there. When outdated you might want to either delete your answer, or clearly specify for what versions of Ubuntu it works. Thanks! :-) – Nicolas Raoul Nov 21 '16 at 2:52
11

I don't use a DE, but for my configurations the next command is the best:

/usr/bin/select-editor
  • it selects your default sensible-editor from all installed editors
  • must run with current user
  • you must have more than one editor in your system

Man pages select-editor

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    +1 Works in 18.04. Does not affect other users. Does not need sudo. – Roux Apr 23 '20 at 5:11
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If you are working from the terminal then I would add the following to your .bashrc file (or the config file for your favorite shell):

export EDITOR=emacs
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    +1 for this answer. Particularly if you're a user and don't have sudo or don't want to modify anyone else's preferences – Loisaida Sam Sandberg Dec 13 '19 at 15:01
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sed -i 's/gedit/emacs/g' /etc/gnome/defaults.list
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3

You can set the default text editor for a specific user in # ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list by:

[Default Applications]
text/plain=gedit.desktop

For global configuration for all users you have to modify the /etc/gnome/defaults.list

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2

If you would like to replace gedit with any other text editor for all file types, the easiest is to edit the defaults.list file located here:

/usr/share/applications/defaults.list

Just find and replace all gedit.desktop references with your own editor (in this case emacs.desktop). You need root permissions to edit the file. So, just do: 

sudo -H gedit /usr/share/applications/defaults.list

Save the file, close it and it's done.

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On Ubuntu 20, you need to change the gnome-text-editor alternatives link from gedit to the one you want. However, there usually is only one such editor detected so update-alternatives --config won't work; you'll have to add the editor you want.

E.g. to add notepadqq:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gnome-text-editor gnome-text-editor /usr/bin/notepadqq 50
sudo update-alternatives --config gnome-text-editor
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0

For some reason I had to use xdg-mime:

xdg-mime default org.gnome.gedit.desktop text/plain # For current user

you can use your system-wide .desktop files under /usr/share/applications/ or local files under ~/.local/share/applications/ or create your own.

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-1

To set Pluma as default text editor for all user (global):

sudo sed -i 's|text/plain=gedit.desktop|text/plain=pluma.desktop|g' /etc/gnome/defaults.list

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