In finder what does the double rotating circular arrow mean that replaces a drive eject icon? Does that mean that MacOS is indexing the drive? Or is it something else? Where are such standard icon symbols defined? Mac OS Big Sur 11.4
Serenitat wrote:
That much was obvious. What does it mean it is busy doing?
You’re much closer to that Mac than we are.
As for tooling to show what’s happening?
Alas, AFAIK, macOS itself doesn’t have a good built-in GUI tool to see what is doing what I/O where, and the lower-level tooling is a little gnarly. The command-line iotop requires disabling SIP for (at least) dtrace, Activity Monitor app doesn’t show activity per device, and command-line lsof shows too much and not enough for this case.
The iStat Menus app might be helpful here, as an alternative extra-cost add-on option.
Serenitat wrote:
That much was obvious. What does it mean it is busy doing?
You’re much closer to that Mac than we are.
As for tooling to show what’s happening?
Alas, AFAIK, macOS itself doesn’t have a good built-in GUI tool to see what is doing what I/O where, and the lower-level tooling is a little gnarly. The command-line iotop requires disabling SIP for (at least) dtrace, Activity Monitor app doesn’t show activity per device, and command-line lsof shows too much and not enough for this case.
The iStat Menus app might be helpful here, as an alternative extra-cost add-on option.
Serenitat wrote:
It is on a MacBook.
macOS Finder is used to synchronize with iPhone and iPad, and those lines can feature both an eject logo and the cited “busy” spinner; on the Finder left-column display lines associated with an iPhone or iPad whether connected wired or wirelessly. This is how you back up an iPhone or iPad to the Mac, among other uses.
I might infer you’re seeing the eject and the “busy” spinner on another Finder line, probably associated with a connected storage device, and particularly a storage device that can be ejected when not busy.
Serenitat wrote:
That is helpful to know. But as I said at the outset this busy spinner is happening on an externally connected hard drive. It is not related to an iDevice.
“Spinner” means “busy; can’t eject right now”. Whether it is an iPhone, a hard disk, a CD drive, whatever.
If that spinning “busy” icon is associated with an iPad or iPhone, that means a backup and/or synch is currently running.
It is on a MacBook.
That is helpful to know. But as I said at the outset this busy spinner is happening on an externally connected hard drive. It is not related to an iDevice.
If a process is not completely finished, e.g. a TimeMachine backup on the external drive, you’ll also see that symbol. Just wait a bit
That much was obvious. What does it mean it is busy doing?
In finder what does the double rotating circular arrow mean that replaces a drive eject icon?
