There is no way to disable photos mac

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There is no way to disable photos mac

A full cataloging of the problems with Photos.app would make Leo Tolstoy seem a man of few words. So rather than listing all of its failings, I will summarize that my goal is to simply make it go away, or at least never darken the face of my monitor. Unfortunately, Photos is the friend of a friend who showed up at your party, stayed long after everyone has left, and no matter how pointedly you ask, will not leave and let you go to bed.

For a while, I thought I had managed to at least lock it in the basement where it wouldn't bother me, by offering it a cask of amontillado and typing the following incantation in at the bash prompt. An incantation, mind you that took a quest of epic proportions to uncover because not wanting do deal with this unruly offspring of a drunken COBOL programmer and a Labrador retriever humping your leg seems to be against the Macintologist religion.

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture2 HotPlugActionPath ''

For the most part, the above seemed to work fairly well. I could insert the SD card from my camera, fire up a program that ***** marginally less, and process my photos without Photos.app, jumping up, putting both paws on my chest, slobbering all over my face, then trying to hump my leg.

Tonight, I tried to use tethering with my new camera. I fired up my image processing software, plugged in the cable, and managed to take a couple of  photos using the tethering plug in. But, as soon as I left the Space that had my image processing software, there was Photos.app, slobbering in my face and humping my leg again.

Unfortunately, not even

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Photos.app

will put this unruly pile of software dogbreath out of our misery.  How do I make it go away, and never, ever come back and bother me again?

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), Photos

Posted on Jun 11, 2016 12:49 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

194,635 points

Jun 11, 2016 12:50 PM in response to elllarsee_backup_account

Unfortunately, not even

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Photos.app

will put this unruly pile of software dogbreath out of our misery.

That is intentional and one of the new security features of E Capitan - the system integrity protection. You are not allowed to modify system software, even as an administrator.

Photos is installed as an essential part of the system and not a separate application. To be able to uninstall it you would have to disable the system integrity protection by booting into Recovery. Not a good idea.

Try to ignore Photos . You do not have to cater to uninvited guests. 😁

You could assign Photos to a separate Desktop where you never look to get it out of the way.

Are you sure, you entered the "defaults ... " command correctly?

This Terminal command is working for me:

This Terminal command will disable the auto start of any photo application, not just Photos. So Lightroom will not launch either and you will have to launch the application of your choice manually.

Quit Photos and disconnect any camera.
Open a Terminal and paste this command into it and hit return:

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

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

Restart the Mac . it should not be necessary, but it only worked for me after restarting. I found this fix in a post by JadedEye

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Answer 2

Jun 11, 2016 12:53 PM in response to léonie

At first it didn't work, but now it seems to, thanks. However it now has an "open photos" checkmark that I have unticked and the combination of the two now seems to work after a reboot.

For the record, I don't want Lightroom popping up uninvited either. Fortunately, it's pretty good about showing up when invited and not when it isn't invited.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,635 points

Jun 11, 2016 1:02 PM in response to elllarsee_backup_account

You're welcome 🙂

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Answer 4

Jun 25, 2016 8:11 AM in response to elllarsee_backup_account

This way is much easier. http://www.redmondpie.com/disable-photos-app-auto-launch-when-iphone-or-camera-c onnects-to-mac/

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

194,635 points

Jun 25, 2016 8:19 AM in response to Fkying Monkeys

This way is much easier. http://www.redmondpie.com/disable-photos-app-auto-launch-when-iphone-or-camera-c onnects-to-mac/

This will work, as long as you do not reformat the cards. Every time you erase a card by formatting it, it is a new device and you have to disable the checkmark again.

That is driving the people crazy that need to format the card after each import.

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Answer 6

Jun 25, 2016 11:26 AM in response to Fkying Monkeys

That does not work. That will only disable Photos for one device, or one memory card. When I get a new memory card, it will still pop up. I have no use for Photos to process my images. I don't want it ever popping up without my specifically clicking on it.
Fortunately the technique léonie listed works, and I only needed to do it once.

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