USB flash drives cannot be ejected

Question

USB flash drives cannot be ejected

Some flash drives allow themselves to be ejected in any of the ordinary ways; with others, particularly large-capacity ones, if I either drag them to the trash or right-click them and select 'Eject', a message appears after a while, saying that the drive cannot be ejected because the Finder is using it, even though the Finder is not using it in any obvious way. I then have to 'Force Eject'.

I know there has been correspondence about similar problems, but the details of mine are a little different and I thought it was worth posting this question.

My device is a Mac Mini (late 2012) with MacOS 10.16.6 (Mojave).

Posted on Jul 30, 2019 1:58 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Michael Graubart Author

Level 2

369 points

Jul 31, 2019 11:59 AM in response to Michael Graubart

PS: I may have solved the problem. I closed all running apps, including Sync Folders Pro, which is set at short intervals to copy everything on my desktop to icloud, and including all apps that are set to open at start-up. Now I was able to eject that recalcitrant flash drive in the ordinary way.

The curious thing is that when I first ran into this problem I received an error message 'Some apps may be using…' (as well as, on other occasions, 'Finder may be using…'; why the inconsistency?) and tried closing all apps, I could not eject the. drive. Once again, why the inconsistency? I shall have to keep an eye on all of this and see if my solution continues to work.

There may be a simple explanation for the inconsistencies. I used the central button on my Apple mouse to reveal running apps, and this might not have revealed all — or more likely, I may have missed something.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

82,564 points

Jul 31, 2019 4:48 PM in response to Michael Graubart

Michael Graubart wrote:

PS: I may have solved the problem. I closed all running apps, including Sync Folders Pro, which is set at short intervals to copy everything on my desktop to icloud, and including all apps that are set to open at start-up. Now I was able to eject that recalcitrant flash drive in the ordinary way.

Great work!

The curious thing is that when I first ran into this problem I received an error message 'Some apps may be using…' (as well as, on other occasions, 'Finder may be using…'; why the inconsistency?) and tried closing all apps, I could not eject the. drive. Once again, why the inconsistency? I shall have to keep an eye on all of this and see if my solution continues to work.

It would very depending on the active App's and/or Processes that were accessing the drive at that time.

There may be a simple explanation for the inconsistencies. I used the central button on my Apple mouse to reveal running apps, and this might not have revealed all — or more likely, I may have missed something.

Another place to look as you familiarize yourself with the processes, is the Activity Monitor.

see > How to use Activity Monitor on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Jul 31, 2019 11:16 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks, both of you who replied. I have tried putting the particular flash drive that won't eject into the 'Prevent Spotlight from searching' exclusion list with no success. And here, attached, is a list of the contents of the drive. I use it to preserve apps that I have downloaded and installed, but might need to re-install, and various documents, etc.

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