Script to automatically UNMOUT all disks EXCEPT Booting Disk

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Level 2

152 points

Script to automatically UNMOUT all disks EXCEPT Booting Disk

The following script works directly as "AppleScript Editor" script or application (without any extra modification required) to automatically unmount the "Macintosh HD" disk after booting from other external disk:

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set volname to "Macintosh HD" -- # name of target volume

set p to (POSIX path of (volname & ":" as alias))'s text 1 thru -2

set sh to "diskutil umount " & quoted form of p & " &> /dev/null &"

do shell script sh

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How to modify it (or create a new one from scratch) to unmount all disks (except the booting one, of course), whatever their names and number?

Better if the script does not issue any confirmation or warning of any kind, but works in the background without any feedback to the user.

That is great to automatically unmount ALL disks (except the booting one) after rebooting or booting, saving energy, heat, noise and speeding up the Mac performance (eg., when selecting save as, etc, since such unused disks do not show), extending the life of the unused disks.

Of course, any disk can be later on manually mounted using the Disk Utility at any time, if required.

Thanks.

Posted on Jun 9, 2013 3:23 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

red_menace

Level 6

17,030 points

Jun 9, 2013 9:44 AM in response to ApMaX

You shouldn't make assumptions about what the names of the volumes are - both the Finder and System Events have terminology to determine if a disk is the startup volume (or a local volume, for that matter), for example:

tellapplication"System Events"

repeatwithsomeDiskin (getdiskswhosestartupisfalseandlocal volumeistrue)

setsomeDisktoPOSIX pathofsomeDisk

do shell script"diskutil umount " & quoted formofsomeDisk & " &> /dev/null &"

endrepeat

endtell

Note that if you are unmounting a disk from a standard account you will be prompted for administrator authentication.

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Answer 2

ApMaX Author

Level 2

152 points

Jun 9, 2013 10:17 AM in response to red_menace

Thanks, but when I run it from AppleScript Editor on Mac with OS X 10.8.4 (Mountain Lion), I get the error:

Syntax Error

Expected “end” or “end tell” but found unknown token.

How to fix it?

Thanks.

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Answer 3

red_menace

Level 6

17,030 points

Jun 9, 2013 10:19 AM in response to ApMaX

Works fine for me in 10.8.3 - did something get mangled while copy/pasting?

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Answer 4

ApMaX Author

Level 2

152 points

Jun 9, 2013 10:47 AM in response to red_menace

I pasted exactly the script above on Mac mini with Fusion Drive 1TB:

tell application "System Events"

repeat with someDisk in (get disks whose startup is false and local volume is true)

set someDisk to POSIX path of someDisk

do shell script "diskutil umount " & quoted form of someDisk & " &> /dev/null &"

end repeat

end tell

yet got the error indiated above. Console shows no messages.

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Answer 5

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Jun 9, 2013 11:26 AM in response to ApMaX

I'd guess the copy went bad.

Start up with a fresh copy of script editor.

Copy & paste again.

Strip down script & see what line is the problem.

tell application "System Events"

end tell

etc.

Post picture of script edit session.

To git rid of the crude, try copied to textwranger then from textwrangler to script editor.

finding old versions of TextWrangler

http://www.barebones.com/support/textwrangler/updates.html

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Answer 6

twtwtw

Level 5

4,936 points

Jun 9, 2013 11:23 AM in response to ApMaX

Just so it's said, you don't need to resort to diskutil for this. This script will work just fine:

tell application "Finder"

set d to every disk whose ejectable is true

ejectd

end tell

no fuss, no muss.

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Answer 7

ApMaX Author

Level 2

152 points

Jun 9, 2013 11:31 AM in response to twtwtw

With such latter script, I get the same error:

Syntax Error

Expected “end” or “end tell” but found unknown token.

I wonder what is going on!

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Answer 8

twtwtw

Level 5

4,936 points

Jun 9, 2013 11:34 AM in response to ApMaX

If you're copy/pasting, you may be selecting too much text. if you drag too far the copy will pick up parts of the web-page code, and applescript won't like that at all.

It's four lines - type it in!

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Answer 9

ApMaX Author

Level 2

152 points

Jun 9, 2013 11:58 AM in response to twtwtw

Thanks. I have found what was going on after a Google search of (with quotes):

"Expected “end” or “end tell” but found unknown token"

For instance (even though it refers to Leopard, it is also valid for Mountain Lion):

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Compiling Embedded Scripts in Leopard (OS 10.5.1)

.../...

The problem is actually in Leopard. With all the unicode changes to AppleScript it now does not like the whitespace characters that Indigo uses to format the scripts. I worked around the problem in 3.0 by having it strip the white space characters before it sends the source to the OS to compile it.

.../...

Now that I know what's happening, I'll just strip the white space manually, or if it's a long script move it into Word and strip it with Edit/Replace.

Source: http://perceptiveautomation.com/userforum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2736

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So, what I did was just remove all spaces on the left of the AppleScript Editor lines and added them manually (just one or two spaces) in such AppleScript Editor.

Then boh scripts above (from red_menace & twtwtw) work BEAUTIFULLY!!!

I will use the second one (the one from twtwtw), since it seems simpler.

A MILLION THANKS FOR ALL YOUR GREAT HELP!!!

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Answer 10

twtwtw

Level 5

4,936 points

Jun 9, 2013 2:53 PM in response to ApMaX

ApMaX wrote:

Now that I know what's happening, I'll just strip the white space manually, or if it's a long script move it into Word and strip it with Edit/Replace.

Download TextWrangler and try that. TextWrangler is one of the few applications I simply could not function without.

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Answer 11

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Jun 9, 2013 3:07 PM in response to ApMaX

long script move it into Word

No! Dealing with unformated text isn't a job for word.

TextWrangle is your friend.

Robert

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Answer 12

ApMaX Author

Level 2

152 points

Jun 9, 2013 3:19 PM in response to rccharles

Thanks to twtwtw and rccharles.

Well, I did not say or do that. I just included those paragraphs from the indicated source to illustrate the issue.

Thanks for the TextWrangler advice. Could BBEdit be used as well?

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Answer 13

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Jun 10, 2013 10:33 AM in response to ApMaX

Sure. My understanding is that TextWrangler is a free subset of BBedit. At one time there was a free BBedit and a paid BBedit. Basically, BareBoned renamed the free BBedit to TextWrangler.

Robert

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Answer 14

Jun 10, 2013 11:31 PM in response to twtwtw

twtwtw wrote:

tell application "Finder"

set d to every disk whose ejectable is true

ejectd

end tell

no fuss, no muss.

True, but since you can't eject a disk whose ejectable isn't true, this is even less fuss and less muss:

tell application "Finder" to eject every disk

🙂

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Answer 15

ApMaX Author

Level 2

152 points

Jun 11, 2013 12:49 AM in response to Phil Stokes

Phil Stokes,

Thanks. Yes, it works (no need to include the 1), just:

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tell application "Finder" to eject every disk

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but I wonder if this simpler script is better, since maybe it tries to eject also the booting disk, causing some delay or something... Just a doubt that I have...

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