PERMANENTLY Prevent Photos from Opening Automatically

RAW isn't automatically converted to JPG, it depends on how you shoot.

With a new camera I set it initially to RAW+JPG and it appeared only the JPG was imported. I then changed the settings so that only RAW was produced and imported and in this instance there are only RAW files in Photos now.

Here's an extract from an email I received from an Apple engineer on the Photos team:

We wanted to let you know that the behavior you are seeing after importing RAW+JPG pairs is expected. The Photos application will pair the two files with the JPG on top by default. If you’d like to display the RAW on top, you can open the image in Edit view, then select Image > Use RAW as Original. You can see this information in the Photos help documentation at https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.1/index.html?localePath=en.lproj#/pht304c2ac e6.

Hope that helps clear up the confusion.

you are welcome

LN

I did what Tenex suggested, ("If connecting causes Photos to launch, launch Image Capture and select in turn each device listed and the carat in the bottom left corner then select "No Application") and yes IT WORKS.

BUT.

After new update of MacOS it started all over again. The prefs that were set in this way evidently were overwritten.

• Is Apple forcing us to use Fotos? Just like forcing a browser on customers?
• Apple should know better.

then tell Apple not the users here as we can not change anything - we can only tell you how to use what there is http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

LN-

I just tried your idea. And IT WORKED on my Macbook Pro, thank you. Monday when I go into work I'll give it a try on my Mac Pro desktop. Do you think Apple will fix this ? Can we give them our input somehow to fix this ridiculous situation with their OS ? Thanks again for your suggestion.....

Myron

I don't recommend running with System Integrity Protection disabled since it confers very strong anti-malware protections by essentially locking down core system components so that even a root user can't modify them. But for those who want to temporarily disable it in order to make changes to the Photos app (or any other protected app, e.g. the equally horrible Apple Mail app), here is the procedure:

1. Restart computer holding down Command-R to boot up in Recovery Mode.

2. Go to menu bar and launch Terminal application.

3. At the command line prompt, type "csrutil disable" (without quotes), followed by the RETURN key.

4. Restart your computer, log in normally, and do whatever it was you wanted, such as disabling Photos.app etc. (My preferred method for disabling an app is to disable the execute privileges by using the "chmod 000" command in Terminal, but there are other ways as well. Google it if you are not familiar with "chmod" or Terminal.)

5. After you finish making your changes, restart into Recovery Mode a second time, launch Terminal from the menu bar again, and type "csrutil enable" (without quotes) followed by RETURN key to re-enable System Integrity protection.

6. Reboot a final time and log in normally.

You can disable the protection, yes, but I would not recommend do that to remove a part of the system software.

This worked great. I did this for both Photos and Image Capture and now my workflow isn't being interrupted by those 2 programs that I never need to use. I am a professional in the television industry and I deal with hundreds of different media cards per month, so this is actually important to my workflow. Thanks Old Toad. (Yosemite).

After going through some of these hacks, and they worked, my super genius friend helped me with a less hacky, more appropriate way to disable Image Capture and Photos from auto opening every time you insert a new card (since the OS sees them as new "devices"). Open terminal and type:

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool YES

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.Photos disableHotPlug -bool YES

Hope this helps.

Congrats Apple, this is a great feature!

Thank You!

used:
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.Photos disableHotPlug -bool YES

This worked great. Thanks. I've kept the code and your note for future use. John Avery Cañon City, CO 03/25/16

I couldn't agree with you more...Photos is not for professionals or even prosumers...it is a "selfie generation garbage collection scheme" at best. I so miss Aperture (well, I will when it finally stops working...must be why I won't update a MacBook Pro's Mac OS!). Thanks for this tip.

Thanks LN, I just sent my opinion to Apple:

Allow users to uninstall Photos app

Hello,

The Photos app may be useful to some people, but many people (like myself) do not want this app on our computers. It is extremely annoying that everytime I insert an SD card it opens and yet I cannot uninstall Photos like other apps.

This app is just a fluffy add-on, the integrity of the system should be in no way dependent on it, yet users are unable to cleanly remove it even with super user credentials.

This points to serious integrity / design problems with the Mac OSX system that such an unimportant app is not properly encapsulated.

>> “Photos.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by OS X.

As a developer, I rely on my Mac to remain secure and clearly delineate between core apps "required for proper functioning of the system" and apps which may be fun, entertaining or possibly helpful to new users, but may be useless to power users.

Photos is firmly in the second category.

In general, I am very impressed with OSX, but that is exactly why I expect better, user-focused engineering from your developers.

Power users like myself should have the option to easily run a lean, secure version of the OS with only the components we need.

Thanks,

Jonathan

>>

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool YES

This works for me in OSX 10.11.3

It seems to be the same as changing to "No application" setting in the Image Capture GUI dropdown.