Opening Unrecognized Files in Mac OS X

One of the coolest things about the Apple OS has always been its ability to open files by dragging them over a specific application’s icon in your dock or on your desktop. But what do you do if the application won’t recognize the file, despite the fact you know it was created in that particular program? If this happens, Apple has given us a little feature that will literally force the app to open the file. Let’s say you created a document in Photoshop a few years ago and now you need to open it to get one or more of the graphics within. If you drag the document over Photoshop and it won’t open automatically, just hold down Command-Option and then try again. Odds are good it will open thanks to the use of this handy brute force approach.