We’ve gotten a number of emails from iPhone users who are having a pesky problem with iPhoto. The photo app is opening everytime they go to connect their iPhone to their computer. Hardly a cause for panic, but an annoyance nonetheless. Fortunately, if you’re suffering from iPhotoitis, there’s an easy solution courtesy of our very own Chris Breen:
Launch Image Capture, select Preferences, and in the General preference disable the option for automatically launching iPhoto when a camera (which is how it treats the iPhone) is plugged in.Man, it doesn’t get much easier than that, huh? Glad we could help.
Wow - my only concern with that is the fear that photos captured on the iPhone won't get backed up and could be lost. Can anyone confirm if the "backup" of the iPhone when synced includes the entire 8gb memory image, or just certain features.
FWIW - my Treo with Missing Sync automatically opened iPhoto when NEW pics were in the device - a bit more intelligently handled than iPhone's sync. It allowed me to keep all photos on the device and still transfer new ones to the desktop - all without worrying about it. Apple really did miss the mark on this one.
Tried this and for some reason, nothing happens when I try to open the preferences dialogue. Makes no difference whether my iPhone is plugged in or not.
Hmmm. I wonder if there's a similar setting for Adobe Photoshop Album...that's what starts up every time I plug my iPhone into my Windows machine.
Have to check that out tonight...
Thanks for the tip!
iTunes backup of the iphone does NOT backup:
(the following is from my memory. there may be other things)
photos in the Camera Roll
passwords for email
passwords for wifi
bluetooth pairing
reseting to factory defaults will loose the above things. be sure to download the Camera Roll before doing so.
But... what about when I plug in my real camera? Yeah... I'd rather have to manually open it when I plug it in then have to close it everytime I plug in my iPhone.. The fact is I'll be pluggin in my phone every night. But... still :P
Same for me as Paul Heins. Nothing happens when I select "Preferences"...zero.
Paul Heins: I just realized my problem (and I'm sure your's).
I had moved Image Capture app from the place it should be (i.e. Applications) into a new folder called "Image Apps". As soon as I moved Image Capture BACK to directory "Applications", the "Preferences" dialog box opens. Hope this helps. LOU
Does not work for Apeture... would be nice. Any other way of doing this?
I didn't see this issue until I actually took pictures with my iPhone, and I realized what the deal was, but didn't know how to fix it. The pictures are still on my phone, so this keeps popping up. I think it will be much easier to manually open iPhoto when I connect my camera (or maybe phone) for photo transfer.
But I agree, this is something Apple should rework. Not a huge pain, but enough that somebody should get to work on it.
Right away!
My more elegant (IMHO) solution is to create a folder in iPhoto (e.g., "from iPhone") and copy+delete photos from the iPhone to there. I have chosen this folder to be synced, so I still have the photos available on the iPhone.
iPhoto only opens when I have new photos.
Strange. The only time iPhoto opens on me is when I have taken pictures with my iPhone and haven't imported them into iPhoto yet. Once I do, iPhoto no longer opens again when I plug in my iPhone until I have taken more pictures with my iPhone. I thought it was designed to work like this? I also choose to delete the original pictures when iPhoto is importing them.
Hi I have 1700 photos on my iPhone and cannot get iPhoto to open up - I really don't want to lose these photos!
I have looked all over the internet and can't figure out how to get my iPhoto to recognize the iPhone (image capture says no image capture device is connected, but in system profile, it shows that the USB has an iPhone attached).
any suggestions? I've downloaded the latest iPhoto.
Kerry, I have the same problem! Neither Image Capture or iPhoto "see" the iPhone. I have several hundred photos that so far I've never been able to get off the iPhone. iTunes sync (everything but photos) works perfectly. It's like whatever mechansim is supposed to make iPhone appear as a camera is broken. Image Capture on this machine works fine with a Canon camera.
Kerry and Steve, I'm having the exact same problem. iPhoto doesn't see my iPhone. Help me Obi-Wan...
I had the same problem. here's the fix until Apple fixes the bug:
1. go into iTunes and disable auto syncing (i disabled it in the iPhone Summary panel of iTunes, as well as the iPhone tab in iTunes preferences/advanced)
2. quit iTunes
3. open iPhoto
4. Dock your iPhone.
iPhoto finally recognized my iPhone as a camera after i did all that and I was able to import my photos. Kind of a chore, but hopefully it'll get fixed soon. It seems iPhoto won't recognize the phone when too much syncing is going on or something.
Good luck!
hi! i had the same problem of my laptop NOT recognizing my computer even when I was docking it...
finally i read somewhere else that you should try turning on your camera while your camera is docked and hopefully image capture/iPhoto will finally recognize it as a camera.
it worked for me and i was finally able to download my 300 plus pictures!!
I've tried everything listed here so far short of restoring the entire phone. I really don't want to do that. I think my case might be the worst of all. I haven't been able to sync my phone for some time now, hoping the problem would ''magically'' fix or some update would come out or something. I have racked up nearly 1600 pics on my phone now from traveling, and would really prefer not to lose them.
None of the solutions work for me. I've tried image capture, unplugging, using different cables, restarting everything, reopening everything in different order, and iPhone and MacBook software are both up to date.... Nothing works. And for me, it's not just the photos. My phone won't sync at all. iTunes is the only program that recognizes it, but even then, it just says ''Syncing Your iPhone'' as if initializing it, but it never goes pass that.
I don't think I'm the only one still having this problem, so I thought I'd post since so many others seem to have found closure. Where is Apple on this?!!
THE SOLUTION:
(maybe)
Open Utilities,
move Image Capture to your Applications folder,
open Image Capture,
select Preferences,
change "when camera is connected" action to "no application",
return Image Capture to where it originated - or leave it there.
That's it.