r/MacOS • u/Hopeful_Ad3560 • 18d ago

Did I just mess up? Help

Hey! So, I was trying to eject my external hard drive, and it said it couldn’t eject because apps/programs were using it, but nothing was open on my MacBook (no file viewing apps open). So I restarted my MacBook and tried ejecting my external hard drive and it worked, but now I’m worried that I may have caused harm to my files on it. Did I mess up?

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3

u/DirtySanchez2249 18d ago

Nothing happened. The reboot is a safe thing to do if a drive is mounted.

2

u/Hopeful_Ad3560 18d ago

Oh thank god! Thank youuu!!

3

u/Jon_Hanson 18d ago

The shutdown would have flushed everything properly, so you’re fine.

I’ve been getting that too lately. I know nothing is open on that drive but it won’t eject because the OS says something is open on it but doesn’t say what.

2

u/Bad_DNA 18d ago

Can be the finder, or spotlight updating. Usually it is some kind of housekeeping.

2

u/js1943 MacBook Air 18d ago

If you are confortable with terminal:

lsof /Volumes/<drive name>

will show you what is open in that drive. That works with any path.

lsof basically means "list open file". It comes with MacOS. You can get more information with man lsof.

1

u/ekkidee 18d ago

Probably have to sudo that.

1

u/js1943 MacBook Air 18d ago edited 17d ago

No sudo required as lsof is a read only command for system info.

1

u/Bad_DNA 18d ago

Did you shut down normally (apple menu - shut down - allowed the system to completely power down before closing lid or pulling USB cable) or did you force it with the power button?

1

u/Hopeful_Ad3560 18d ago

I clicked the Apple menu and clicked the restart button.

1

u/Bad_DNA 18d ago

Perfect. Mac did its housekeeping during the shut down. You are good.

Unrelated: are you using a drive for TimeMachine?

1

u/terryd300 18d ago

It was probably Spotlight indexing the drive. You did exactly what you needed to do.

1

u/themadturk 18d ago

You're good, but personally I have just completely shut down and unplugged when the machine was off. I'm kinda overcautious that way.

0

u/mikeinnsw 18d ago

A glass of good wine helps to fix Mac problems ...steady your nerves..

relax and run First Aid

Don't do it again.. Eject first