# How to turn OFF [email protected] Apple Photos from opening every time CF card inserted...?



## cayenne (Jan 11, 2017)

Hi all!!

Ok, I do all my photo and video work on my mac. I'm on Yosemite right now.

I'm a tech guy by actual trade, but for the life of me, I cannot ferret out how to turn this annoying behavior OFF!!!

Every time I plug my CF or SD card from my Canon 5D3....Apple Photos immediate opens up with the images in it. I have to close it down...and then go about my way opening and importing with LR, etc.

The suggestions I've seen to stop this, say to uncheck the box saying "Open photos for this device"....which I do religiously.
However, for some reason, the mac doesn't seem to remember this next time that CF card is inserted?!?!?!

I'm guessing that since I format my cards in camera before each unload and new use, whatever markers are there disappear and Photos opens it yet again upon insertion.

Has anyone found a remedy for this VERY ANNOYING behavior? Lordy, I had when they default computers to autoplaying anything....grrrrrrr.


TIA,

cayenne


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## neuroanatomist (Jan 11, 2017)

The way cards are recognized by the MacOS is not what I'd call consistent. I have a 17" MBP with an ExpressCard/34 slot, and I have both a CF and an SD reader for that port. Mounting a CF card does not cause Photos to open, and the card shows up on the desktop as an orange 'removable drive' icon (just like my LaCie Rugged 1 TB backup drives). Mounting the same CF card using a FW800 CF reader launches Photos and it mounts as a white 'fixed drive' icon (like a typical thumb/flash drive). Mounting an SD card through the ExpressCard/34 port (different reader than for CF cards) opens Photos and it mounts as a white drive icon. So, there are flags set on cards for drive type, but how you connect the card also matters.

Regardless, there are a couple of ways to stop it. Both involve changing a setting in the Image Capture application (which you may not even have known existed, but it should be in your Applications folder). That's not intuituve by any means, but the setting in Image Capture trumps Photos, iPhoto, Aperture, etc. Historically, that was the only way to stop iPhoto from autolaunching – there was no setting to control the behavior in iPhoto preferences, only in the Image Capture preferences. However, Image Capture no longer has a preferences dialog at all.

The first way is to insert a card, quit Photos (or not, probably doesn't matter), then open Image Capture and you should see your card. Click on the little expansion triangle button in the lower left corner (not the eject button next to the card), then set the popup menu to No Application as in the screenshots below. If you use both CF and SD cards, you'll have to do this for each card type.

Alternatively, if you're comfortable in Terminal, the following command should take care of it in one step for all card types, and you don't need a card mounted to do it.


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

Should you ever want to revert to the default behavior (why? no idea, but just in case), just repeat the above Terminal command, changing the YES to NO.

Hope that helps...


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## slclick (Jan 11, 2017)

Yep, Image Capture is the solution but don't expect it to stick. Occasionally it comes back, not sure if that's due to OS updates or a bug.


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## Meerkat (Jan 11, 2017)

thank you 

_thank you_

*THANK YOU*


This has been driving me crazy forever.


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## cayenne (Jan 11, 2017)

The capture image thing didn't work...BUT....the command line thing did:

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


This seemed to fix the problem.


Geez...what's the deal with Apple these days? I saw a guy asking "if Apple, these days, was hiring all the Windows guys that get fired". 

The UI on the mac and their products is getting less and less user friendly and intuitive.

Anyway, this worked....and thank you!!!

C


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## neuroanatomist (Jan 11, 2017)

I suspect that even with image capture, when you format a card in the camera, but mount it via a card reader, it thinks it's a new camera. The terminal command stops it from looking for new cameras all together. Glad that sorted your issue!


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