Why does Photos launch when I connect my pohone to my Mac?

You can disable this behavior by doing the following:

1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac and let Photos launch.
2. In Photos, look at the sidebar on the left. Under "Devices," you’ll see your iPhone listed.
3. Select your iPhone in the sidebar.
4. At the top of the Photos window, you’ll see an option like “Open Photos” or “Automatically open Photos for this device” with a checkbox. Uncheck that box.

Alternatively, you can change the default app (or set it to do nothing) using Image Capture:

1. Open Image Capture (search for it in Spotlight).
2. Connect your iPhone.
3. In the bottom-left corner, you’ll see a drop-down menu labeled “Connecting this iPhone opens:”. Set it to “No application” or another app if you prefer.

So you can import any images. If you don't want this behavior, run Image Capture, plug the phone in and change the settings.

Tom, which version of Photos do you have installed? In Photos on macOS 15 Sequoia there is now again a checkmark, where we can disable the launch of Photos, when we do not want Photos to open.

Look in the Import window, right below the toolbar, at the left side. For me, Photos does no longer open, when I connect my iPhone, once this checkmark has been removed.

In Image Capture.