July 16, 2007 at 5:54 pm
· Filed under Hardware, Mobile, Applications, User Experience
If you have an iPhone you may have noticed that when you plug it into a Macintosh, iPhoto launches right along with iTunes. I don’t mind iTunes launching as it is there to synchronize my music, and I have it open all the time anyway, but why iPhoto?
The reason why it is opening iPhoto is that OS X sees the iPhone as also being a camera. As with other camera’s, its default action is to (you guessed it) wake up iPhoto. I don’t use my phone to take pictures much, and I certainly don’t need iPhoto to open every time I sit my phone on its cradle to get a bit of juice. So, I poked around to figure out how to make it stop.
After fruitless adventures in both iPhoto and the iPhone’s Preferences/Setting (although seemingly the right places to look) I got a good lead on how to change the behavior. The application that controls how the Mac responds to how to handle what happens when a camera is plugged in is the Image Capture application, not iPhoto (and that’s the one kicker here-if you make this change, iPhoto will not automatically open for any camera).
To change the behavior:
- Open Image Capture (in your Applications directory)
- Open the Preferences panel (Image Capture > Preferences…)
- Change the drop down following “When a camera is connected, open:” to “No application”
That’s it.
Tags: Applications, Camera, Hardware, iPhone, MacBook Pro, Macintosh, Mobile, os x, Photography, User ExperienceShare This
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Roy wrote @ July 25th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Thanks for the tip.
Iphoto opening every time I connect the iphone was making me crazy!
Glad it helped; it was driving me up the wall too!
[…] iPhone launches iPhoto No More! Thank you Scott for this tip on removing iPhone’s most annoying OS X habit. […]
cj wrote @ August 30th, 2007 at 9:03 am
This was HUGE! Thanks Scott.
Antonio wrote @ December 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Yes but there has to be a way to stop it from launching when your iphone is connected and launch with a digi cam is connected. SHutting off all isn’t a good option.
@Antonio: I’m in complete agreement with you-this distinction should occur at the level of an individual device, not a global one. Unfortunately, Apple isn’t seeing it our way at this time.
[…] iPhone: Please stop launching iPhoto! Quick fix to stop getting iPhoto to launch every time you sync your iPhone. (tags: iphone iphoto sync) […]
leslie wrote @ January 11th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Thank you too. iPhoto - how annoying
Simon wrote @ February 5th, 2008 at 2:47 am
Thanks for the tip!
and saving me from throwing it out the window!
Adam wrote @ February 10th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Yeah, that problem was annoying and the fix was obscure, here is a video of your fix for anyone who learns by seeing 
http://www.4tay.com/blogs/Adam_Parker/Tutorial_%231_-_Stop_iPhoto_Auto_Launch/1/1/645/
Your tip is dead-on. It should help a lot of people with this problem.
Tyler wrote @ February 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Thanks for the tip Scott, I don’t really ever use iPhoto and I was so tired of seeing it multiple times everyday!
Richard wrote @ March 17th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Thank you!! I’m an experienced Windows user but new to Macs, and this was freaking driving me CRAZY.
Kevin wrote @ March 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Antonio >
Look here for what you want:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/873-tip-prevent-iphoto-from-opening-when-you-plug-in-your-iphone
Personally, I’d like it to stop opening iTunes. I don’t mind iTunes running, and the phone syncing, but it drives me crazy that I have to close the iTunes window every time I plug in the phone.
Adam wrote @ April 19th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Thanks for that. It was annoying having Aperture load every time and the setting is hard to find. One would expect something like that to be hidden away in system preferences!
Jason wrote @ May 14th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Another thanks from a no-longer frustrated iPhone user!
