How to stop Photos opening when you plug your iPhone into a Mac
Plug an iPhone into a Mac and the Photos app opens on its own, ready to import, even if all you wanted was to charge the phone. Two settings control this: a tick box in Photos itself, and a menu in a built-in Apple app called Image Capture that decides what opens for each device you connect. This guide turns both off. It covers macOS Catalina (10.15) and later; the Variations section covers older Macs, where iTunes is the app that pops up.
What you'll need: Your iPhone, a cable that fits both ends, and the iPhone's passcode. The Mac can only see the phone while it is unlocked.
Plug in the iPhone and unlock it
Connect the iPhone to the Mac with the cable and unlock the phone. If the phone shows Trust This Computer?, tap Trust and enter your passcode.
Photos will probably open by itself at this point. That's fine — you need it open for the next step.
Open Photos if it didn't open on its own
Click Photos in the Dock, or press Command + Space, type Photos and press Return.
Click your iPhone in the sidebar
In the sidebar on the left, scroll to the Devices section and click your iPhone's name. The main area changes to the import view, showing the photos on the phone.
Untick "Open Photos for this device"
At the top of the import view, above the thumbnails, there is a tick box labelled Open Photos for this device. Click it so the tick disappears.
There is no Save button. The change applies straight away, but it only covers this one iPhone on this one Mac.
Open Image Capture
Press Command + Space, type Image Capture and press Return. It is an Apple app that comes with every Mac, in the Applications folder, so there is nothing to install.
This second part makes sure the change sticks. The tick box in Photos is a shortcut for the setting you are about to see, and Image Capture shows it for every device in one place.
Select your iPhone in Image Capture's sidebar
Under Devices on the left, click your iPhone. Its photos appear in the main area.
Find the "Connecting this iPhone opens" menu
Look in the bottom-left corner of the window for a drop-down menu labelled Connecting this iPhone opens:. If it isn't there, click the small square button with an upward arrow in that corner to reveal it.
Choose "No application"
Click the menu and choose No application. Quit Image Capture, unplug the iPhone, and plug it back in. Nothing should open.
Variations
The setting is stored per device, so each one needs doing once. Plug in the iPad or camera, select it in Image Capture's sidebar, and set its Connecting this device opens menu to No application in the same way.
On these versions iTunes handles the iPhone, and it opens whenever the phone connects. Open iTunes, click the iTunes menu, choose Preferences, then click Devices. Tick Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically and click OK. Photos on these Macs is controlled the same way as in the steps above.
From Catalina onwards the iPhone appears in the Finder sidebar under Locations, and Finder doesn't open on its own. If it starts a sync each time you connect, click the iPhone in a Finder window, stay on the General tab, scroll down to Options and untick Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected. Click Apply.
Troubleshooting
Unlock the phone first — neither Photos nor Image Capture can see a locked iPhone. If it still doesn't show, unplug it and plug it back in, and tap Trust if the phone asks. A charge-only cable or a worn one can also be the cause, so try a different cable or a different port on the Mac.
Check the menu in Image Capture (steps 5 to 8). If it still says Photos, change it to No application there — that is the setting the Mac actually reads. Also check you selected the right device: a second iPhone, or the same phone after a restore, counts as a new device and starts with the default again.
Nothing about importing changes. Open Photos yourself, click the iPhone under Devices, and use Import Selected or Import All New Items as before. The only difference is that Photos waits to be asked.
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