Use this Terminal command to force a stubborn disk out of your Mac

An external hard drive or USB thumb stick is connected to your Mac and ready to go. Drag it to the Trash or right-click to eject it. Look around your Mac, no apps open, no programs running. Whatever caused the delayed discharge, it’s certainly not your fault. peter parker quotes“I missed the part where that was my problem.”

Unfortunately macOS is causing problems. There are multiple possible reasons why the computer is holding onto the disc (we have done them before), but often the main problem is: macOS is running processes that access files on disk. Even so, all Your Mac is shut down and closed as far as the eye can see. claim The disk is in use. We all have a hard time letting go.

That said, your Mac doesn’t always leave you dry: Occasionally you’ll get the option to force eject the disc, but even that solution comes with a warning: Are you writing? Using software or removing the disc from your Mac and forcing it to eject can corrupt data.

Luckily there is a simple solution as long as you are okay with using terminal.and Reddit thread thinking about this subjectone user suggested the following command to quickly end unknown processes running between macOS and your hard drive:

sudo lsof /Volumes/{disk name}

Short for “list open files”, the “lsof” command is for listing all open files in the system and showing the process that opened them in the first place. For this reason, it is often used when the user cannot unmount (or eject) the disc.This command shows which processes are using which files. You can’t see this just by using surface level macOS. As long as you stop using your hard drive yourself, you should only see processes that are interfering with macOS.

Once you know the offending process, you can end it and safely eject the disc without worry. To do this, you need to open the Activity Monitor ( command + space Then search for “Activity Monitor”).switch to disk Open a tab and scroll through the “Process Name” list to see what was printed to the terminal. Click it, then click the (X) at the top of the menu bar. Finally, select “Exit” in the popup to end the process. Then try ejecting the disc. The disc will immediately leave the computer.

As another user pointed out in that Reddit thread, the culprit is often (at least on macOS) Quick Look. Quick Look is a feature that lets you peek at documents, images, and other files without actually opening them first.If Quick Look appears after running this terminal command, this user is advised to try Quick Look on a different file No to an external disk. For example, open your Mac’s main disk and Quick Look a file there. This process should allow you to eject the disc without issue.