I just saw the message below on my 2015 MacBook Pro running macOS 12.2.1. It seems weird for macOS to be complaining about ejecting an internal SSD that I could never actually eject. What could cause this? Is there anything that I need to do to fix it or diagnose it? I have no external drives hardwired to this laptop, if it matters. I saw this after unlocking my Mac. Right before that, I woke it up by typing on my external keyboard. This laptop is usually docked and connected to KVM by an IOGEAR GCS62DP KVM switch. Here's output from diskutil list:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩         1.0 TB     disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +1.0 TB     disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨APPLE SSD - Data⁩        396.2 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 718.9 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                1.6 GB     disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      7.5 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume ⁨APPLE SSD⁩               15.8 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.8 GB    disk1s5s1

/dev/disk2 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +2.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk3⁩         2.0 TB     disk2s2

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +2.0 TB     disk3
                                 Physical Store disk2s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Time Machine Backups⁩    543.1 GB   disk3s1

Have MacA and MacB running TM and backing up to the same Time Capsule. TC has the internal drive and two attached USB drives - same problem occurs on all of them. Both Macs are latest version - 10.15.7, and TC is the terminal version 7.9.1 MacB will frequently show a "Failed to eject diskX" message in the log. Then cannot mount that sparsebundle on MacA. This will continue even after complete power down and restart of everything - MacA, MacB, the TC, and the external drives - so some setting must be persisted to one of the drives, but what and where? If MacB is offline for a couple of days (wife's computer and not heavily used), and MacA has gone through a couple of daily power cycles, then suddenly all of the bundles can be mounted. When MacB is turned on again, and generates some new backups, then the same problem recurs. Have reported to Apple feedback with full discussion and logs but so far crickets. Will sometimes (rarely) have the same problem with a sparsebundle for a MacA backup also not being mountable on MacA - this usually clears after one reboot. Note that the remount issue occurs when trying to use Finder, or from the command line with hdiutil or open (using DiskImageMounter internally) - usually get a "Resource temporarily unavailable" message. Time Machine itself never seems to have any problem re-mounting these bundles for the next backup. Suspect some XATTR setting, but various experiments have all failed. Any suggestions? Thanks

I have plugged an external disk to my Mac. Now, I want to eject it. But my Mac stubbornly refuses and says that an application may be using the disk. I have not launched any app neither opened any file from the disk. [I have downloaded and installed the app *What's Keeping Me?*](http://www.hamsoftengineering.com/products/wkm/wkm.html) This app is quite nice. She tells me that the process mds is using my disk. I have killed the process mds and several processes mdworker. These are for Spotlight. But such processes get spawned again. **How can I eject *my* disk from *my* Mac ?** I have Mac OS X 10.6.8.

I have Time Machine backing up to four external disks, rotating one each week to another location.  But I have another where I manually run a script to back up a website and two specific large directory trees.  This disk will not eject, and gives no explanation when I try.  I suspect it is because as soon as it gets a new backup, Spotlight starts indexing it and 500GB takes a while. Unfortunately, in Sequoia 15.1.1 (24B91), external disks cannot be added to the Spotlight exclusion with the Settings GUI .  Clicking "+" does not allow navigating to them.  Drag-and-drop from Finder does nothing. defaults read com.apple.IMCoreSpotlight contains a key of IMCSDoNotIndex = ( ); but after I add two directories to the exclusions (with the Settings GUI), that key remains empty. If I read all nine domains associated with Spotlight, and search for those directories, neither is mentioned. **Is there another way to get an external disk excluded?**

Similar to [this question](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/142459/how-to-eject-my-external-drive-when-my-mac-refuses-because-of-spotlight) , I have an external SSD that I use as expanded storage when my MacBook Pro is docked. I would like the contents of that disk to be searchable with Spotlight, so I have indexing enabled. The problem is that most times I try to eject that drive I'm met with the message, > The disk "External" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it. I believe the culprit is mds and its related processes, but I'm not entirely sure. Is there a good way to reliably eject an external drive that has Spotlight indexing enabled?

Often when external SD or Micro SD cards are mounted on the Desktop, I cannot eject/unmount them. The only operation I have done on the card(s) is to open them, copy and/or delete files. Other than the Finder I don't access the card in any other application. In the Finder the error message box says: The disk "MEMORY CARD" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it. Buttons are Cancel or Force Eject, which I always cancel out of. In the terminal (bash) I navigate to /VOLUMES and try to use umount: $ sudo umount ./MEMORY\ CARD umount(/Volumes/MEMORY CARD): Resource busy -- try 'diskutil unmount' $ diskutil unmount MEMORY\ CARD Volume MEMORY CARD on disk3s1 failed to unmount: dissented by PID 422 (/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickLookUI.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/QuickLookUIService.xpc/Contents/MacOS/QuickLookUIService) Dissenter parent PPID 1 (/sbin/launchd) The only way I can safely unmount the card is to log out or force-quit the finder. This seems rather extreme.

Is there any way to disable the "the disk was not ejected properly" message? I use a KVM and need to switch between two systems and have a memory stick that is in the KVM. The problem is that it's very annoying to get the message every time I switch from one computer to the other. I know, I can unmount it (and probably should), but I switch all the time, so it's a inconvenience to unmount, and there is nothing sensitive on the memory stick.

I accidently unplugged my external HD before the eject was done :-/ /Volumes/Red is still there and can't be deleted. The HD still mounts but as /Volumes/Red 1. **How can I remove /Volumes/Red?**

$ gls -lhA /Volumes/

gls: cannot access '/Volumes/Red': Device not configured
d????????? ? ?    ?       ?                ?  Red

_______ _Info: macOS Ventura 13.6.7_

I wrote a simple AppleScript to eject external disk (simply by "tell"ing Finder to do "eject") and it works as expected in simple cases. However, when some Finder window is opened with a location with path inside the disk (to be ejected), then it blocks me from ejecting. It shows an alert dialog with the following: > **The disk "MyDiskName" couldn't be ejected because the Finder is using it.** > > Stop the Finder action and then try to eject the disk again. First of all, **I'd love to know why "loose" uses of disk are considered so seriously and block the same as with explicit uses, via scripting?** To say, it's different when we "use" a disk by reading/writing files or running a shared/locked file in it, against simple Finder with folder in that disk. For example, when you try to eject disk manually (via GUI and mouse clicks) it will block you if the disk is "really" in use, but if it's only being "used" with an unrisky Finder file-listing, then it will allow you to eject without any warning, and will close that Finder window automatically without even asking. Secondly, how can I **safely bypass this limitation**, by detecting a "loose" using of the disk, terminate it and then proceed with the ejecting as intended? To be clear, I consider as "loose use", any operation that even the GUI of MacOS does not warn before breaking it. It will warn when a file is still opened and in use, or some file copying is running in the background, but will not warn before ejecting if we simply have some Finder windows open. It will also won't warn alert if some file is opened but not "locking" the disk (for example opening some image in the disk with the browser, so it "forgets" the origin after showing it). P.S. By the way, I also saw that even if a Finder window show list of files inside a subfolder of an external-disk - if the disk is sleeping/offline (yet still connected and available as mounted, after some minutes without use, probably cached somehow) - then the ejection is working well. Why? P.S. 2 my script is as follows:

set diskName to "MyDiskName"
tell application "Finder"
 if disk diskName exists then
  eject disk diskName
 end if
end tell

On a new Macbook air M3 (macOS 14 Sonoma), when I try to eject my external hard drive (eject button in the Finder), it takes a very long time. The hard drive is connected through a hub via USB-A 3.0 and the hub is connected to the Macbook via one of the USB-C ports. - Why is the dismount so slow? - How can I make it quicker?

After working with an external USB backup disk I want to cleanly unmount the drive. When pressing the 'eject' button Finder warns me with the message: - "**The volume can't be ejected because it's currently in use.**" or - "**The disk "Diskname" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it.**". or when trying to use the Terminal: umount /Volumes/Diskname - "**umount(/Volumes/Diskname): Resource busy -- try 'diskutil unmount'**" As far as I am aware, I am not using this disk but Finder says I do, so I must be wrong. I prefer a clean unmount of the drive. As I am in the middle of doing multiple tasks, logging out and logging in is not preferred as is the installation of third party software. Terminal command lsof might be of use here, but personally I think this is too complex for such a 'simple' problem and to be honest, I do not know how to use it properly. My question: How do I know what program is using my drive so I can properly quit that program and eject my drive?

The new MacBook Air and Pro without optical drives lack an Eject key. I use Ctrl + Shift + Eject a lot to put my display to sleep at the simple press of three keys. Without the Eject key being there anymore I'm wondering if there's an alternative to those very handy shortcuts which required the Eject key. The alternatives I've found so far are not too good: * in Alfred type "lock" - *too many strokes for fast computer locking* * a hot corner in the bottom left to put the display to sleep - *ok, but I get there by error too often and lock the computer for serious productivity bummers* * close the lid of the MacBook Air - *puts the Mac to sleep completely and therefore not very useful, when it should keep doing what it's doing.* Is there a similarly fast alternative to Crtl + Shift + Eject for new Macbook?

> [Control–Command–Media Eject: Quit all apps, then restart your Mac. If any open documents have unsaved changes, you will be asked whether you want to save them.](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236) But the new MacBook Pro doesn't have the Eject key.

I have a small WD Passport 2 TB HDD on which I’m backing up important and irreplaceable files. It’s not the only backup but as one of three it’s important. It has about 1 TB of data in it. I closed my laptop overnight. Today I disconnected the HDD with the laptop screen closed. When I opened it I get the message about incorrectly ejecting the drive. I hadn’t thought about the fact that even with the Mac closed, the drive was still mounted. I know doing so can lead to loss of data and problems with the disc. In fact I just read that for those drives that rely on power from the Mac, ejecting incorrectly can damage the drive itself — this is an HDD, not SDD, so I assume there’s a read/write head. If the data weren’t so important I wouldn’t sweat it. But as this is an archival backup, I want to be sure the data is good, and the drive too. Should I run disk repair on it? Do I need to reformat it and copy the original data back? Is the drive just iffy from here in lit, so best idea would be to get a replacement? I’m running Monterey 12.5.1 on a 2015 MacBook Pro, if that makes a difference.

When I have a USB device like a SD card, USB drive or external hard drive, I always need to unmount it, otherwise OS X complains about the device not being ejected properly. (It’s [possible to disable this message](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6078/disable-the-disk-was-not-ejected-properly-message) , but that’s risky.) On Windows, the solution to this is trivial: Disable the filesystem cache for USB drives, so that they can be immediately and safely removed. Does OS X have a way to disable the cache?

Is there a utility that will eject external drives? I've tried force quitting the Finder (indexing was often the culprit), shutting down all open applications, but some process is still preventing the drive from ejecting. Such a program would identify the offending process, shut it down and then eject the drive safely.

Is there a command to tell an external optical drive to open that still works when there's no disk in it? It has a button on the drawer, but it's vary tiny, and it requires a push in the opposite direction of opening. It's so thin that I have to pick it up off the table to push it, and I have to push hard enough and not too hard. And if I'm not fast enough, the slight pressure is enough to prevent opening.

This problem happened suddenly on my MacBook pro: when I insert a CD/DVD, it tries to read it for a few seconds (the motor of the DVD drive is working) and then it stops, and ejects the DVD. I have read in many forums that this is a dead condition for DVD drive, and should be replaced. But some others also suggested the lens might require cleaning. Does anybody have experienced the second situation (i.e. can the problem be solved using DVD drive lens cleaner kits)?

So far I've been using the following AppleScript to eject all external drives at once conveniently using a shortcut: tell application "Finder" eject (every disk) end tell This script is is stored in /Library/Scripts and I have assigned a shortcut to trigger it in [FastScripts](http://www.red-sweater.com/fastscripts/) . But there's one problem. When you have **Time Machine Backups** enabled, OS X mounts a virtual MobileBackups volume in /Volumes to store **local snapshots**. This volume will be ejected alongside all the physical external volumes. I want to avoid this as this will stop local snapshots from being made (until it's mounted again at next login). ### How can I add an exception to exclude /Volumes/MobileBackups in the AppleScript above?

I cannot eject anything from Finder, either by clicking the eject icon in the sidebar, or by dragging the icon to the trash (it does turn into an eject icon though). I'm using Disk Utility to get around this, but it's frustrating to have to open that up when I'm staring at Finder all day long. This is a recent development, as it was working fine before. I haven't installed anything new that I can associate with when this started happening. ETA: I managed to fix this myself. Trashing the Finder and sidebar preferences and then restarting Finder did the trick.