Disable iPhoto opening automatically

Every time I connect my iPhone to my Mac, iPhoto pops up with an import dialog. I tried turning it off, but it keeps coming up every time my iPhone or iPad is connected. Then I figured it how to disable it for good.

It’s not iPhoto that’s doing it.
At first, I thought it was just an obvious iPhoto setting. And there is an iPhoto setting that looks like it will disable this from automatically loading.

Open iPhoto Preferences…

From the menu, choose

iPhoto -> Preferences

or press

Command + ,

(comma) when iPhoto is open.

In the iPhoto Preferences panel for General, you can see an option called

"Connecting camera opens:"

If you set this to

No application

it doesn’t work as you expect. Every time you connect your iPhone or iPad, iPhoto is still going to automatically pop up with an import dialog for your photos.

It’s actually an Image Capture setting.

An Image Capture setting is causing iPhoto to automatically launch when your iOS device connects.

Open Image Capture…

Using Launchpad, search for “Image Capture”.

When Image Capture launches, click the little Arrow widget on the bottom of the left panel.

This will reveal the setting for what launches when you connect your iPhone or iPad.

Choose

No application

from the selection menu.

Now you won’t get that annoying (and potentially embarrassing) iPhoto import window when you connect your iPhone or iPad to your computer.

Beware: this won’t keep someone else’s computer from automatically opening iPhoto when your iOS device connects to their computer. Just saying…