Comments on: How can I prevent iPhoto from auto-launching when I plug in a card reader?

Question: How can I prevent iPhoto from auto-launching when I plug in a card reader?

jdroth — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:10:30 -0800

How can I prevent iPhoto from auto-launching when I plug in a card reader? When I plug in a card reader, iPhoto assumes that it is being summoned and auto-magically launches itself. I don't want this to happen. I don't want iPhoto to ever launch without my permission, which I might grant once a year or so. Yet, every day I have to cope with it launching multiple times as I attempt to transfer photos to my hard drive. It is a minor annoyance, true, but it is an annoyance. My question, then, is how can I make iPhoto stop doing this? I've searched its settings high-and-low, but to no avail. I've searched the System Preferences high-and-low, but to no avail. There must be something I'm missing.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:18:58 -0800

iPhoto does not do this for me. Have you looked in the preferences of the iSync application? I'm not at home to check, but it seems like this is where I set this.

By: tomierna

tomierna — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:21:01 -0800

Launch the "Image Capture" application in your Applications folder.

Go to the Preferences menu item under the Image Capture menu and pull down "No Application" for "When a camera is connected, open:".

Despite the card not being a camera, Image Capture likes to launch iPhoto when it sees camera-like information on the card.

By: silusGROK

silusGROK — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:25:11 -0800

( The masses rejoice!!! I've been wondering how to do this for _ages_! )

By: bshort

bshort — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:29:27 -0800

I've been looking for this too.

Thanks!

By: jdroth

jdroth — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:08:50 -0800

I never noticed the Image Capture application before, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to look there if I had. Thanks, tomierna. You've made me a happy man. (Especially since I can eventually redirect the cards to open in Photoshop or some other app, if I want.)

By: alms

alms — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:42:30 -0800

Launch the "Image Capture" application in your Applications folder.

This is part of the intuitive Macintosh interface.

By: baltimore

baltimore — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 12:01:52 -0800

This is part of the intuitive Macintosh interface.

Snark.

Though, in this case, deserved.

It makes sense from a workflow perspective that Image Capture is an independent, application-agnostic program, but when the card keeps opening iPhoto, the logical reaction is to suspect that the solution is a preference in iPhoto.

I do believe you're given the opportunity to choose this behavior when installing or upgrading iPhoto. Oddly, though, this only makes it more likely that you'll return to iPhoto when you decide you want to change the behavior.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:51:45 -0800

Similarly unintuitive, the place to choose a default web-browser is in the Safari application preferences, not in the System Prefs panel.

This thing should definitely be moved out of Image Capture and into the System Preferences. It's already there for CD/DVD "what to do when inserted" options.