Stop Photos opening when you insert an SD card

Inserting an SD card — from a camera, drone, or dashcam — makes macOS treat the card reader as an imaging device, so Photos pops open to offer an import. To stop it, open Image Capture, select the card reader, and choose No application under Connecting this device opens, or disable hot-plug globally with one Terminal command.

Why an SD card triggers Photos

When you slot in a card, macOS sees the reader as a camera-class device, exactly as if you'd plugged in the camera itself. That's why the Photos import window appears even though there's no camera in sight — the operating system is reacting to the reader, not the card's contents. The upside is that the same controls that stop a camera opening Photos work here too; you're aiming them at the reader rather than at a phone or camera body.

Set the card reader to "No application"

1. Insert the SD card so the reader shows up.
2. Open Image Capture from Applications or Spotlight.
3. Select the card reader in the Devices list (built-in readers often show as "SD Card Reader"; USB readers appear by their own name).
4. Click the small toggle arrow at the bottom-left and set Connecting this device opens to No application.

macOS remembers the choice for that reader, so future cards mount quietly and you copy files off them in Finder on your own schedule. If you swap between several USB readers, note that each is a separate device and gets its own setting.

Disable it for good in Terminal

To cover every reader and every device in one shot, switch off hot-plug system-wide. The -currentHost flag is required — the key is stored per-machine and the command has no effect without it:

# Stop cards and devices auto-opening Photos on connect
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.ImageCapture disableHotPlug -bool true

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

Re-insert the card once after running it so the new behaviour takes effect. Nothing needs restarting.

The card still mounts — just quietly

Turning off the auto-launch doesn't hide the card. It still mounts, and depending on its format you'll see it on the desktop or in the Finder sidebar, ready to open like any drive. You're only stopping the app from jumping in; your files, and how you copy them, are unchanged. That's the whole win: the card behaves like storage instead of ambushing you with an import screen every time.

Finder, not Photos, for the files

With the auto-launch off, copying from the card is a plain Finder job: open the mounted card, go to the DCIM folder your camera or drone writes to, and drag the files where you want them. That's often faster than an import screen for a quick offload, and it leaves the originals on the card until you're sure they've copied across. If you shoot RAW, Finder also lets you grab the sidecar and metadata files an import tool might quietly filter out. The setting you changed only muted the pop-up; your files, and how you reach them, are entirely unaffected.

When a card doesn't show up at all

Opposite problem — the card or reader never appears? That's usually a mounting or format issue rather than this setting. Start with why an external drive isn't showing on Mac to get it recognised.