Can't Eject Hard Drive on Mac ((Easy Fix))

[@MorePlatesMoreDates]

You're the man. Just saved my hard drive.

[@naeemsheikh0169]

Who knows after even 5 years someone needs it. I’m new to Mac and was struggling. Thanks a lot ... bless

[@juleszey]

I wasn't able to eject external hard drive and searched for a tutorial to help when I stumbled upon yours. This has been so very helpful this morning as I have been re-installing programs, files, and an extensive photo library from a back up for days on end and continuing to troubleshoot ongoing issues with the lap top before yet another one of my apple products are deemed and considered "vintage". Your saved me a long wait on the phone with Apple Care to get a simple solution and I wanted to leave you a comment before heading over to the Apple Store Genius Bar for the follow up repair to my MacBook Pro. If you're not hired already by Apple, they will benefit from employing you.

[@EdnaDelacruz]

I have no idea why you have dislikes but it worked! Thanks!

[@BrunoDeSoto]

Thank you very much for your help. I looked at about 11 other videos and none of them helped. Yours worked immediately. Once again, thank you.

[@lauraflegeau6939]

It didn't work for me :(

[@PrinceCanHelp]

lol me either

[@cwired9407]

@@PrinceCanHelp meh me either lol

[@Ravinna972]

Didn't work for me either

[@LOLDEMOS]

Same

[@TruthRestored1820]

My hero. Dude.... this have been driving me crazy for forever. Worked like a charm. Thanks for the help!! Bravo!

[@Irakli008]

Ngl, looking at the video length, I thought the solution was gonna be "just plug it out anyway". Thank you, worked perfectly :)

[@megachiren]

Thank YOU, I spent an hour on the web trying too find the answer and eventually found it with your simple fix. ,

[@rodrigo.lamadrid]

Omg I love you so much!!! I was looking for a solution like this for the longest time!

[@perry801]

Thanks so much for this. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out what was using my external drive!

[@Valeria-kk8bz]

Thanks so much; I was losing my mind trying to figure this out and this is such a simple solution!

[@BrianFairbanks1]

Many Mac forums visited, ZERO had the idea that worked. Thanks!

[@richardanica3232]

Wow thanks man! I've been SUPER anxious the past 2-3 days because I'm in the middle of working on some videos for a client and was having this same issue! Can't believe it was that simple! :D

[@VKArtist]

YOU ANGEL. God I wish I knew this trick YEARS ago. THANK YOU!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Sad thing is that it has been going on for years!

[@gwmanzo]

Thanx so much. I can’t tell you how long I have been force quitting the device.

[@sjl930]

Thank you for making this clip. It just worked for me!

[@Markanthoony]

OH MY GOD! THANK YOU, you definitely saved me from potentially losing everything i had transferred from my MacBook to my external !

[@j2review]

I've been having this issue ever since I updated to Catalina and you just solved it!! THANK YOU!!!!

[@malikfajar3299]

Nice after this i can’t open my finder, and the hdd still stuck and can’t be ejected, good job pal

[@IceCream-hp7mm]

Oh brilliant this saved me from force eject! Thank you!

[@mariat98]

Thank you, lost a couple of pics when i've had to force eject it, but this worked!

[@Phlyjb]

GAHHH THIS HAS BEEN KILLING ME FOREVER!!!! So helpful thanks heaps!

[@alisonbuckland6364]

Thank you, even though I had nothing open, I had to force quit 3 other apps for it to work.

[@trucker-paramedic7547]

Thank you for this video. You are on elf the helpful people in the world. We need more like you.

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Haha thank you. Happy to help.

[@centaur70]

Thanks for posting this. It worked spot on. Two thumbs up.

[@GlendaMacDonald]

Thanks this worked for me. A simple solution to something that was driving me crazy!

[@racheltraxler294]

I tried this and the same box popped up saying that it can't be fixed because one or more programs is using it but I don't have anything open and running, any further suggstions?

[@sniperrrish]

same

[@MortenHaugumHake]

same

[@tomastorday1039]

Yes, I had the same problem, relaunching the Finder didn’t work, in my case the culprit was Spotlight indexing (you can use Activity monitor to find out more). Turning off the Spotlight solved the problem. In case you have Mac OS Mojave installed on your Mac, try this link: www.fireebok.com/resource/how-to-turn-off-and-turn-on-spotlight-on-macos-mojave.html. It worked for me.

[@alejandracastano7328]

@@tomastorday1039 how did you find out the problem was spotlight? and how did you turn it off?

[@tomastorday1039]

@@alejandracastano7328 Hi, if you want to know whether Spotlight is causing the problem, just open the built-in Activity monitor and check the mds_stores process in the left column (if you can’t see it, just type mds_stores in the search window of the Activity monitor). If % CPU is high (sometimes it can approach 100%) it means that the processor is overloaded with Spotlight indexing. There are more ways how to turn it off. One way is to turn off the Spotlight indexing altogether (via terminal commands, see the link in my previous post) - BUT this doesn’t work for everyone. Much easier is to exclude your external drive from indexing. I recommend doing it as the first thing when you plug a new external drive into your computer (before you transfer any data to the drive). Having plugged the drive in, go to System preferences - Spotlight - Privacy. There click the + button and add your external hard drive. Thus you can prevent Spotlight from indexing and searching the selected drive. My system has been running smoothly ever since I did it, and I’ve experienced no hiccups or slowdowns. There is one caveat though. In some cases, if your external drive is NOT empty, macOS might not let you exclude the external drive from searching. In such case, I recommend that you back up your external drive and then format it. After formatting the drive you can exclude it from searching without any problems. Then copy your backed up data back to your drive. From that moment on, you shouldn’t experience any problems.

[@jurassickaiju14]

Thank you so much for this! I had this problem this morning, and the method worked like a charm!

[@_elizabeth]

Thank GOD for this video. You just saved my hard drive and all my photos!

[@bar06]

Thank you SO MUCH!!! You saved me time and effort after trying and trying...Big hugs!!!

[@mollydarcy]

IT worked for me Seth thank you so much so helpful - very good thinking!!

[@erikfoss3781]

Never would have thought of that, worked!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Yes it is a bit obscure. The issue seems to persist even years later.

[@christopherakins9452]

Sounds like something I need to try, though this is still just a patch for what appears to be a buggy OS - Catalina. Just upgraded both an iMac and MacBook Pro to Catalina a few months ago and have had issues ever since with it not wanting to eject (thumb drive and external HDD), not wanting to save files to a thumb drive, etc.

[@LaloRacer1]

Says the drive is still being used by one or more apps I really wonder what it is :/

[@faudanke4459]

WOAH! this video saved me from being late to school lol thanks for the tip it really helped a lot

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Nice! Happy to help.

[@Masa-gl6ti]

I've already tried this and I still have the same issue. Is there something else I can do to fix this? I don't want to corrupt my external hard drive.

[@BenjoC8632]

Marissa McDougal yep, same here. So much for not potentially losing a client. What a nightmare

[@FleecefoxStudio]

This is the only thing that I know. Other than turning off the computer and then removing the drive.

[@TomKaszuba]

Excellent advice. Worked perfectly. Thank you very much.

[@AlessandroCardano]

THANK YOU! Worked for me in 2019 with my MBP 17" late 2009 with brand new 1TB ADATA HDD -A

[@FleecefoxStudio]

You would think they would have fixed this over the past 8 years.

[@philipokayo4820]

Thanks mate, saved me after 10 days of heartache

[@bryanfernando2336]

this is THE BEST VIDEO EVER..THANK YOU !!!!

[@2much2see2]

I know this is a really old video, but THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

[@granthall6662]

Thank you. Concise and fixed my problem.

[@toopkarcher]

Thank you. Do you know if there is a long term solution? I've just bought myself an external hard drive and it's quite frustrating if i've got to do this everytime. Thanks anyway for the fix, I can go to bed now.

[@minkle9304]

THANKYOU SO MUCH this had been struggling me for weeks!!!! 🙌🏻

[@flyktus]

Thank you for you short and very helpful video!

[@MaikoRules]

Oh man saved me a lot of worry. Thank you

[@ginnymiller2448]

This helped me. Such an easy solution! Thank you so much. This problem was driving me mad!

[@avisaurus]

Short and sweet. Worked! Thank you.

[@kenmitchell3355]

Thank you; I've been trying to figure that out for over 30 minutes on a 2018 iMac.

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Oh wow. This old mac must have some of the same issue as the newer ones.

[@norcalx1474]

Ty. That chit was driving me crazy

[@tripinvest8160]

wow that worked like a charm. thanks mate!

[@2101case]

Just worked for me. Thanks.

[@Bobetha]

Quick and easy fix. It worked!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Great!

[@MiksCasal]

Amazing!!!

[@AdreamlyfeByMichelle]

Amazing! Thanks. That scared me! I just purchased this G-drive ssd to work in FCPX.

[@TutorIsland]

It worked! Very cool, thank you!

[@jerbib9598]

While you're doing other things and you need to swap HDs this won't help. Usually I need to switch to another HD with the Finder running. This has been a Mac problem since the earliest days of HDs. MS Windows fixed this 15 years ago. What I don't understand is how quickly a Mac will restart with the HD in use. So this should easy enough for Apple to fix.

[@SashaDeKasha]

You are so very awesome!!!! I about lost my mind :) Thank you so much! You are the best! Sasha

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Happy to help! Dont lose your mind haha.

[@AnOldSchoolHome]

FleecefoxStudio 😊

[@Endoxist]

Amazing! Still works in 2018

[@treyvollmerDP]

Worked like a charm. Thanks so much!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Happy to help!!!

[@amandamiguelaustin3649]

THANK YOU! Now I don't have to carry my external hard drive around with me or shut my computer down just to unplug.

[@ahmedkamur9395]

You the real MVP

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Happy to help.

[@EricScottBloom]

WD 500GB DID eject (disappeared from desktop without any warnings, etc. but the drive is still on; its LIGHT IS BLINKING!). Shouldn't ejecting it shut it off????? I'd appreciate any help on this. I have about a million files on this sucker, and I just laid out $1000 to retrieve a million files on another wd 500 due to it dying.

[@data.images]

quick n' easy. Thanks mate!

[@oscarbernal5599]

Simple but EFFECTIVE !!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

It took me over an hour to figure this out. Thought I had better share the fix.

[@erich4329]

worked perfectly. thanks!

[@ThuyTran-rr6ll]

It worked amazingly. Thank you man!

[@tweakins]

Perfect. Well done buddy

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Thank you. Can be a pain if you are in a hurry.

[@zeckrincuff1467]

Absolute life saver. Thank you so much!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Nice! Happy to help!

[@norcalx1474]

Update: it worked a few times. Tonight & many others, it still f refuses to eject. No program is using it.

[@ratboyinc5598]

Nice! Very helpful, thanks (:

[@1nsytegames42]

Perfect! It worked! thank you!

[@1nsytegames42]

but WHY does it do that?

[@Tantrotantro]

wonderful and easy! thanks!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Happy to help!

[@mwaseem6]

a million thanks!

[@FleecefoxStudio]

This issue gave me fits. I am happy to help.

[@RahulJoshi20]

Magical.. I was facing the same issue. Thanks

[@RahuldeCunha]

thank you...from 2021 :)

[@brummie0007]

Cheers, it worked for me!

[@ericwalters8535]

BRAVO... BRAVO... thank you so much

[@mattg7271]

worked perfectly! thanks so much Seth!

[@rejoicemultimediaimages]

Thank you so much! You saved lots of my time.

[@Slicesandspices]

Thank you! I was about to flip !

[@AmazingGrace945]

my problem is I keep getting the message that my seagate external disk wasn't ejected properly, but I didn't eject it at all?

[@elsarognstad5529]

Super helpful! Thanks

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Happy to help.

[@learn.photography.videography]

works in 2020 - thanks! (subd btw just now)

[@MrDavebelow]

This helped me, thank you.

[@rameshuggirala9247]

Thanks for your solution 👍 bro

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Happy to help! Simple and effective.

[@colinf84]

didn't work for me but after I shutdown my computer it changed from the yellow icon in the video to the green one for my time machine backup. Maybe setting it up for time machine for the first time causes some glitch where it can't eject? Works fine for me now so hopefully this helps someone else

[@dgdg_13]

Deserved a like!

[@abyrnes591]

Thank you for your video. It is how many years old though? And Apple has still not fixed this? Oh but they changed all the ports again so I have to buy all new freakin cables for my externals… great job Apple

[@pavanifernando4504]

Thank you so much! You're the best

[@FleecefoxStudio]

Haha happy to help.

[@tanu575]

So helpful! Thanks 😊

[@dirtboy79]

It worked for me cool, thanks

[@24hourtravellers]

Genius!!!

[@danielbarniville8882]

you are unreal, great help

[@darshan394]

you are a legend man ! thanks

[@VictorKinny]

thank U

[@JocelynBF]

thank you it works.

[@salanka]

Thanks!!! Works a treat!

[@homumaki]

Life saviour! Thank you!