Stop Apple Photos from Auto Launching in OS X with One Command

If you’re a Mac user and are annoyed that OS X automatically launches Apple Photos every time you connect a device or insert a memory card, there’s good news for you: you can disable the program from launching for all devices with a single command.

Melbourne-based photographer Ben Fon tells PetaPixel that all you need to do is Open up Terminal, and enter the following line:

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

Then press Enter.

Voila! Apple Photos should stay closed now when you need to transfer photos onto your computer. If you would like to re-enable the auto launching function in the future, simply open up Terminal again and switch the YES to a NO with this line:

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool NO

“While you can stop Apple Photos from self-launching per device via the program itself, you have to do this for every device one by one — plus, more annoyingly, every time you format your memory card, it treats it like a new device,” Fon writes on Reddit. “It was driving me bananas and I finally found a solution.”

If this has been driving you bananas as well, hopefully this trick will help make your photo workflow a less annoying experience.