Tell Your iPhone to Stop Opening iPhoto!
Every time I plugged in my iPhone, it had this nasty habit of opening iPhoto for me. Not because it wanted to drive me to drink, but because iPhoto is set to open any time a digital camera is connected to my computer – which, technically, an iPhone is.
To stop this behavior, you won’t find any preference in iTunes or iPhoto, where you would normally think to look. This little gem can be found in a separate application in your Applications folder called Image Capture.
Open Image Capture and go to the Preferences menu (under the Image Capture menu item). Under the General tab, change the option for “When a camera is connected…” to “No Application” instead of “iPhoto”.
This means you’ll have to manually start iPhoto when you connect your digital camera, but you won’t have to CLOSE iPhoto every time you plug in your iPhone (which, for me, is a heck of a lot more often than plugging in a camera!)
GREAT! Thank you very much! You would not believe all the wrong answers on the internet.
i like everyone else was about to go insane over this little feature. this is my first mac and was relaying my frustrations to a friend who simply said ‘google it’.
Thanks….. it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t use preferences in iPhoto to stop it launching.
Thanks so much! This did the trick!
Many thanks. After enduring about 6 months’ worth of frustration on this score, I finally got round to googling it. Ha.
Awsome, thanks a lot, iphoto was doing my head in!!!!!
Wow! You have answered my prayers. Hallelujah!
Thank you so much for this tip! So necessary!
Thank you so very much. I photo was driving me crazy. Very useful tip
chears
Thanks for the great tip,
However there is an option in iphoto preferences for this (version 8.0.3). Could be only in iphoto 09, I never looked for it in 08.
Cheers
thx!
Thanks! This is has been driving me nuts.
Thank you!!! This was SO obnoxious!!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Excellent.. that has annoyed me sooooo much. Gave up trying to figure out how to disable it.
Woo hoo! Yes! Thank you!
Thank you so much for publishing this tip. That was SO annoying.
Thank you! All the other solutions I found mentioned an option that my version of iphoto doesn’t have.
Thanks for the tip. It seriously is an annoying little procedure to quit iPhoto everytime I connect my iPhone.
Thank you so so much!! Who would’ve thought to look at the Image Capture Preferences?!?
Wow! Thanks so much… no preference in iTune or iPhoto was a big no-no… now I know how some of MY visitors feel when they come to my site for a tip & are relieved to find a solution. Thanks so much!
thank you so much…iphoto does nothing but make my computer slow. so much relief to be able to sync photos when/if i want to!
Thank you so much
It was driving me up the wall
THANK YOU! You are my personal Baby Jesus.
i so want this .. but can’t find the application “Image Capture” ? Any ideas?
Clare – the newest version of iPhoto now has this preference in iPhoto instead of Image Capture. Depending on how long ago you bought your Mac, they may not even include Image Capture anymore – but I’m only guessing at that. Which version of iPhoto do you have?
OH MY GOODNESS!!! A ZILLION THANKS. CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT A RELIEF THIS IS!!
Thank you thank you!!!!
That’s awesome, thanks. Would be even better if there was a setting to open iPhoto ONLY when there are new photos available to import from the iPhone…
Thanks for the help! Quick and easy solution to something that’s bugged me for a long time.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
WOW, this is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a bunch!
It seems in Snow Leopard that this has changed a bit, you can still set this preference in Image Capture, here is how:
- Load Image Capture with the iPhone attached
- Select the iPhone in the devices list on the left side
- Down in the lower left corner is a drop down titled “Connecting this iPhone opens:”
- Select “No Application”
This should stop it loading iPhoto when you connect it. The extra benefit here is that you can set different preferences for different devices allowing your actual digital camera to still open iPhoto.
The preference in iPhoto described above seems to be a global preference for all digital camera’s so not nearly as flexible as this.
Hope that is useful
N
Thanks, Nick. I wasn’t aware Image Capture had changed in Snow Leopard.
How to spell pain relief? michaelkrol.
worked! thanks.
It’s a shame this doesn’t show up higher in Google search results! I promoted this page. Thanks a lot!
THANK YOU!!!!!
Thank you so much! I searched FOREVER for this feature in iPhoto, iTunes, and the Settings on my iPhone and could not figure out for my life how to disable it. It was driving me crazy as I have thousands of pictures in iPhoto and a 4-year old iBook, which becomes completely useless for about 10 minutes when it opens iPhoto. Consequently, I never used to plug in my iPhone to my computer, and now I can. Thank you thank you thank you!
Thank you ! That’s been driving me mad !
Your have quite literally removed my fear of plugging in my iphone. Never would have looked there, and I’ve been using Mac since I’ve been using computers.
I did it ages ago and couldn’t for the life of me remember I knew it was preferences but where… Google its amazing what you can ask!! (and michaelkrol.com)Good Blog.
you saved my sanity! thank you!
Star man,
It has changed a bit with regards how you do it on Snow Leopard but your post really helped. Finally cracked this – the amount of times I have been through the iphoto preferences pane looking for the answer. Thanks you.
Thanks has been annoying me for ages
when i had my iphone plugged in and tried this is allowed me to stop the iphone from opening up iphoto.
Thanks a bunch Michael!
THANK U VERY MUCH!!!!
Hi,
I tried your method but the Image Capture menu didn’t have Preferences. It’s version 6.0 on OS 10.6.1. Could they have done away with this feature?
Oh, maybe a new version of Image Capture- if I select the iPhone in the devices column in the upper left hand side, a box appears in the lower left. That’s where I can choose “No application” in the drop down menu of “Connecting this iPhone opens:”
Thanks for the hint.
Wow! Who would have thought this many people were having this problem. This should really be a preference in every image editing application and not just Image Capture, that nobody really uses anyway. Thank you so very much. I didn’t have this problem with iPhoto, but with Aperture instead. After searching for “Aperture opening with iPod Touch” and finding nothing but stupid answers online, I thought I would try something a little more popular than Aperture. Lo’ and Behold, your site was the first hit.