PERMANENTLY Prevent Photos from Opening Automatically

Yes, that works. It disables the start of any application. But when I suggest this, most users complain, because they want to be able to start an application of their choice, just don't want Photos to launch.

Thank you! I recently upgraded to El Capitan and have been frustrated with Photos opening every time I inset a memory card despite constantly unchecking the box. I think it's beyond absurd that I have to go searching through a forum and use code in the terminal to make this virus app stop attacking my computer. I should just be able to uninstall the **** thing since I've never used it except to try to figure out how to disable it. It's truly a waste of hard drive.

No reason to tell the users here - to make a difference you need to tell APple - http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

LN

S.P.L. wrote:

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.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This problem has been annoying me ever since iPhoto became Photos.

Even though I turned off that checkbox in the top left of Photos to no longer automatically launch the app, if ever I formatted the same memory card and later reinserted it to my Mac, then Photos would auto-launch again. Same thing for changing the setting in Image Capture - these settings do not persist after a memory card format. So annoying, and such a huge waste of time waiting for sluggish Photos to launch each time when I didn't want it to, only to have to turn off the setting until next time.

There should simply be a preference setting in Photos to disable this "feature" permanently. but of course there isn't.

but your simple Terminal command finally fixed this annoying problem. No more Photos launching by itself.

Thank you again

Tenex's solution worked great for me. But I linked my phone to open my preferred program Picassa.

I unplugged my phone, closed image capture, opened image capture, plugged in my phone and image capture automatically opened picassa. Yipppeee

I wish the command line fix had worked for me, but nope, all 25 iPads still open iPhoto when I plug in the USB cable to the Configurator laptop. What's even better is that since I had to Restore them to factory settings, every one of them is named "iPad". Such fun using the pull-down menu to try to disable for each.

Running 10.11.4, latest version of Configurator, etc.

then you need to try again - you probably made a typo - many people have used this and it does work

And Apple needs to address this so report it to them - the squeaky wheel gets the grease - http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html

LN

Worked like a charm on El Capitan Thanks.

Yup, its driving me crazy too, I have talked to geniuses in the Apple shop and they weren't initially aware of the problem but then couldn't help with a solution.

Are apple dictating what we should do, yes it seems that way apple is definitely going 1984 all the way.

Legendary Apple 1984 Ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEI4XRfHSJo

Rather than waste your =and our time with meaningless editorials you should try reading the thread - the solution is posted just above your pointless editorial

S.P.L. wrote:

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.

LN

I've reported it to apple and the terminal thing is a workaround not a solution and i don't want a workaround. It’s like buying a car and being asked to pray when you use the breaks to make them work, I trust most of the time that wouldn’t do anything and not everyone is religious anyway just like I am a photographer and not a programmer. Thanks for your aggressive response though.

What ever you want - there are currently only two "solutions" - unchecking the box to open Photos for each device and for each SD card every time you format it or use the terminal command

If you demand only a solution that matches your personal narrow desires then you may wait a long time as I seriously doubt that APple is going to build a custom version of Photos just for you

Have a nice day and good luck

LN

This worked like a champ. Thanks !!

An easy way to disable the Photos app opening automatically for anything is to open Terminal and type this line:

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

A caution: No application will open at all, after you enter this command. You will have to launch the app you want manually.