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First release of Unblock Eject, a free, open-source menu bar app that shows what's keeping your disk from ejecting.
- Every disk you can eject, external drives, memory cards and disk images, with each app and process that has a file open on it, its icon and the files.
- Helpers grouped with their app, so a renderer or background helper shows up as the app you know.
- A polite Quit for the app that's in the way: the same request as its own Quit command, so it can ask to save first. Never forced, and only when you click.
- Plain explanations for what can't be quit: a shell in a terminal, a running command, Spotlight, Time Machine, Quick Look, a Photos or Music library, a disk image still open from the disk, and Finder.
- Eject from the menu or the window, the whole drive at once, the way Finder does, with disk images detached. If it can't, the window says what's still in the way.
- The
unblock-ejectcommand line tool to print the same list, or JSON, for any disk or path. It only looks. - No entitlements, no permissions, no internet access and no dependencies. It never opens your files.
Network shares aren't listed yet; they're on the roadmap.
Install
Download Unblock-Eject.zip below, unzip it, and move Unblock Eject to Applications. The first time you open it, macOS may say it can't verify the app, because it isn't notarized. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. There's nothing else to allow. Details are in the README.
The command line tool is in unblock-eject-cli.zip. Unzip it and move unblock-eject somewhere on your PATH.
Works on Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
SHA-256 of Unblock-Eject.zip: 8b38c92548620f9887115b5238d4d1f6bd13a31a7750e75ed4d8493c83c45819
SHA-256 of unblock-eject-cli.zip: 532eb5479d3efb561af51c2e475f1e4196ceea23ae6244c9fc159799811839a6