iphone: how to turn off the auto launching of iPhoto

If you've got an iPhone and a Mac, you may have been annoyed, like me, by the launch of iPhoto every time you connect your phone to the charging dock. I keep photos on the phone, but even if there are none, iPhoto always launched, and wanted to import pictures.

There didn't seem to be a setting in iPhoto to change this. I recently remembered something from when I was playing with scanner drivers on OS X, and hit paydirt.

The setting to turn of the launch of iPhoto isn't in iPhoto, or iTunes. It's in a helper application on your mac called "Image Capture", which is in the Applications folder.

Launch that, then go to the "Preferences" menu (not "options" button, but "Preferences", in the pulldown menu at the top of the screen. For "when a camera is connected, open:" , select "no application", and you're done.

I'll remember to launch iPhoto on my own whenever I need pictures off a memory card, or when I connect a camera. It's a handy feature for people with one camera, or who want the automatic stuff, but I have three cameras, a cameraphone, and about 10 memory cards, many of which aren't even for pictures.