Stop Photos launching when you connect a camera to Mac

If you import through Lightroom or Capture One, having Photos jump in front every time you tether or plug in your camera is just noise. Image Capture owns this behaviour: open it, select your camera, and set Connecting this camera opens to No application. One Terminal command does the same for every device at once.

Point the camera at "No application"

Image Capture is the macOS component that decides what launches when a camera connects — Photos is just the default it points to. Change it there and the behaviour sticks with that camera:

1. Connect the camera over USB and switch it on (or set it to the transfer/PTP mode it uses for tethering).
2. Open Image Capture from Applications or Spotlight.
3. Select your camera in the Devices list on the left.
4. Click the small toggle arrow at the bottom-left to show the options.
5. Set Connecting this camera opens to No application.

Now the camera can connect for your Lightroom or Capture One import without Photos elbowing in first. The setting is per-device, so each body you own can be handled separately — useful if you shoot on two.

Disable it globally in Terminal

If you'd rather no device ever auto-opens an app — cameras, phones, and card readers alike — disable hot-plug system-wide. The -currentHost flag is mandatory here; without it the command writes to the wrong scope and nothing changes:

# Stop any device auto-opening an app on connect
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool true

# Undo
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool false

Reconnect the camera afterwards so macOS re-reads the setting. There's no restart or logout involved.

Where Photos' own setting lives

Photos also keeps a per-device switch, in case you prefer to leave it there. Open Photos, select the camera under Import in the sidebar, and untick Open Photos for this device. It does the same job as the Image Capture route for that one camera; the difference is that Image Capture is the master control and also covers apps other than Photos, which is why it's the dependable choice for a tethered workflow.

Point it at your editor instead

"No application" is one choice, but the same Image Capture dropdown lets you name a different app to launch — so if you'd genuinely like connecting the camera to open your import script rather than Photos, set that here instead of disabling it. For a fully hands-off tethered setup, though, most photographers still prefer No application and start the import from inside their editor, which avoids two programs racing to grab the camera at once. Either way the key point holds: Image Capture, not Photos, decides what happens on connect, so it's the switch worth remembering.

Check the camera's USB mode

Cameras present themselves to the Mac in different ways, and it changes what you see. In its standard PTP or "connect to computer" mode the camera appears as an imaging device — that's what Image Capture and Photos react to, and the case the steps above cover. Some bodies can instead expose the card as mass storage, in which case it mounts like a drive and Photos may not trigger at all. If yours offers the choice in its menus, mass-storage mode is another way to sidestep the auto-launch, though PTP with "No application" set is the more predictable pairing for tethering.

Keep the library off your boot drive

Serious shooters fill a Photos or system drive fast. If you do keep a Photos library alongside your main editor, see how to move your Photos library to an external drive to reclaim internal space.