Stop Photos App from Opening when Connecting your Phone

Each time you plug in devices such as Android phone, iPhone or iPad to a Windows 10 computer, the Photos app opens immediately. This allows you to import all your media files, but it’s not the way you always want it.

Often users connect their phone for charging and not for syncing. This problem, if you may call it that, can be corrected by simply changing the settings.

How to Prevent Photos App from Opening when Connecting your Phone to Windows 10 PC?

Disable the AutoPlay Option in Windows 10 Settings

Windows comes with an AutoPlay setting that automatically checks the device with a storage when connected to the computer. This AutoPlay app allows you to specify how you want to interact with the connected device and provides options such as opening the File Manager and searching for media files. You can disable AutoPlay when you connect your iPhone, which may be desirable on your office computer, especially if you do not want all of your iPhone pictures to be imported automatically.

The easiest way to find an item in the Windows 10 Settings app is to click the Windows button or Windows icon at the bottom left of the screen. When the Start menu opens, type Autoplay and Windows should find the desired setting option.

The window that opens displays the items you want to switch on or off. For all media and devices, set AutoPlay to Off and make Removable Drive and Memory Card to Take No Action.

Stop AutoRun in Windows 10 Using the Registry Editor

If you want to stop autorun in Windows 10, this guide is for you.

To disable the AutoRun feature in the Windows 10 Registry Editor, do the following:

1. In the Search field, type regedit and open the Registry Editor command.
2. Go to the next button:
   • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Policies\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Policies\Explorer
3. In the right pane, create a new value for the NoDriveTypeAutorun DWORD and set it to several of the following values, depending on what you want:
   • FF – disables AutoRun on all drives
   • 20 – To disable AutoRun on CD-ROM drives
   • 4 – To turn off AutoRun on removable media
   • 8 – Disabling AutoRun in fixed drives
   • 10 – To disable AutoRun on network drives
   • 40 – Disable automatic execution on RAM disks
   • 1 – Disabling AutoRun on unknown devices
4. If you want to disable automatic execution on a certain combination of disks, you need to combine their values. For example, if you want to disable automatic startup on CD-ROM and removable media, set DWORD to 28.
5. To return to the autorun function, simply delete the NoDriveTypeAutorun DWORD setting.

Disable AutoPlay Using the Group Policy Editor

On Windows 10 Pro systems, you can disable AutoPlay for multiple users on the same computer using the Group Policy Editor.

1. Click “Win+R” to open the Run field and enter “gpedit.msc. In Computer Configuration > Administration Templates > Windows Components, click AutoPlay Policies.
2. Double-click Disable AutoPlay in the right pane of details to open the Properties field. Click Enabled, then select All Drives in the Disable Automatic Playback field to disable automatic playback on all drives, or select a CD-ROM and removable media to disable automatic playback on all drives.

Conclusion

Finally, after performing the fixes above, the Photos application should not open automatically anymore when you connect your phone to your Windows 10 computer.

Let us know in the comments below if this guide was able to help you.