Ejecting your drive safely

Before you unplug your external drive — to take your laptop somewhere, or to use the drive elsewhere — eject it from Storage Studio. It pauses Storage Studio's own work, asks apps that commonly keep files open on the drive to close, and then ejects the drive the way macOS does.

How to eject

1. Choose Eject Drive… from the More menu. (In the Advanced view's menu-bar popover, it's Eject NVMe under More.)
2. Storage Studio asks Eject your external drive? and reminds you that relocated folders and apps won't be reachable until you plug the drive back in.
3. Click Eject.
4. When it's done, a notification says the drive was ejected and is safe to disconnect.

What happens when you click Eject

%% caption: What Storage Studio does when you eject the drive
flowchart TD
  A[Click Eject] --> B[Automatic actions are paused]
  B --> C[Developer apps that often hold files on the drive are asked to quit]
  C --> D[Wait for them to close, up to 15 seconds]
  D --> E{Does the drive eject?}
  E -->|Yes| F[Notification - safe to disconnect]
  E -->|No| G[Notification - files still in use]

• Automatic actions are paused, so Storage Studio doesn't start moving or cleaning anything while the drive is going away.
• Apps are asked to quit politely. Storage Studio asks a short list of developer tools that often keep files on the drive open to quit — Xcode, Simulator, Android Studio, Docker, OrbStack and JetBrains IDEs — in the same way as choosing Quit from the app's menu. An app with unsaved changes may ask you first.
• It waits up to 15 seconds for those apps to close, then ejects.

If the eject fails

If any app still has files open on the drive, macOS won't let the drive go. Storage Studio shows a notification saying Eject failed with Files still in use, and nothing is harmed — the drive stays connected and working, though automatic actions stay paused until you resume them. Quit the apps you were using with files on the drive (including any moved apps), then try again. The Activity Log in the More menu records which apps were holding the drive. See Eject fails: "Files still in use".

After you plug it back in

• Relocated folders and moved apps work again as soon as the drive is back — see When your drive is disconnected.
• Automatic actions stay paused until you resume them. The Home screen shows Automatic actions are paused with a Resume button once the drive is back.

Good to know

• Ejecting from Finder works too, but Storage Studio won't pause first or ask apps to close.
• Don't unplug in the middle of a move. A move onto the drive waits and continues when the same drive is back; a move back from the drive stops and can be started again — see The drive was unplugged during a move.
• Remount Drive in the More menu tries to mount the drive again if it's plugged in but not showing up.

See also: The shortcut left behind after a move, Moved apps when the drive is disconnected, Pausing or stopping everything.