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Hello! I have a 2020 MacBook Pro and a WD My Passport for Mac 4TB, and sometimes when I want to eject it it says "one or more programs may be using it" and I can force eject, but I don't want to risk the contents of the drive. How can I find out what application is preventing me from ejecting?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.0
I found the problem, Spotlight was indexing my drive. What you need to do it go to System Preferences --> Spotlight --> Privacy --> and then add your drive. Spotlight no longer indexes that drive!
I found the problem, Spotlight was indexing my drive. What you need to do it go to System Preferences --> Spotlight --> Privacy --> and then add your drive. Spotlight no longer indexes that drive!
Straton-Chanes Said:
“Can't Eject External Hard Drive: Hello! I have a 2020 MacBook Pro and a WD My Passport for Mac 4TB, and sometimes when I want to eject it it says "one or more programs may be using it" and I can force eject, but I don't want to risk the contents of the drive. How can I find out what application is preventing me from ejecting?”
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A Few Thoughts on This:
Go to: Apple menu, Select: Force Quit...
Viewing the items in Force Quit, is anything running? If so, open the application and close it. See if it can then be safely removed.
If you have Security Software installed, then that may be scanning this hard drive consistently. If installed, uninstall it, using an uninstaller. Security Software just gets in the way on a Mac, and this is a pure example of how and why. Ask the developer of the Security Software which version of the uninstaller is the correct one to use.
Is Time Machine currently backing this computer up? If it is set to automatic, then it may be backing up your computer constantly to this hard drive. So, let the backup process complete, and then disable automatic for backup
Restarted the computer and managed to add it. I can still not eject my hard drive. Have tried restarting finder. Closing all applications.
I tried repairing the disk in disk manager but it won't allow me since it can't eject the harddrive.
I use activity monitor, but it doesn't tell me what processes are using the discs. Am I looking at the wrong thing? There are so many processes... which one do I close?
Hello! Do you know why I can't add my external harddrive to this section? It just says "Can't add your external drive due to unknown error"
Hi! What "section" are you trying to add your drive to?
To the where spotlight wont read it... I have tried so many solutions and I can’t eject my la cie hard drive from either my newly bought mac or my old one...
Instead of dragging, try clicking the + button and adding it that way. Otherwise, restart your computer and try again.
Can't Eject External Hard Drive
