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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?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Nov 12, 2020 5:47 PM

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Posted on Nov 12, 2020 7:29 PM

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!

9 replies

Nov 12, 2020 7:30 PM in response to Straton-Chanes

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?

———-


A Few Thoughts on This:

  • View “Force Quit”:

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.


  • Any Security Software Installed?:

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 Backup Used:

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

Can't Eject External Hard Drive

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