macOS Sequoia External Drive Ejection Issues
macOS Sequoia users are reporting problems ejecting external drives. Learn about potential causes and workarounds.
Users running macOS Sequoia are encountering problems ejecting external drives, with devices refusing to unmount due to errors about files or processes still being used. This issue persists even after closing all applications. The problem affects various setups, including SSDs, USB drives, and external hard drives, across different Mac models running Sequoia 15.1.1. Potential Causes and Workarounds Several potential culprits and temporary solutions have been identified: QuickLook QuickLook, the file preview feature, can lock external drives. A workaround is to kill the QuickLook process using the following Terminal command: /usr/bin/killall -KILL QuickLookUIService Spotlight Indexing Spotlight might be continuously scanning the drive. Add the drive to Spotlight's exclusion list (Settings > Spotlight > Search Privacy) to prevent indexing. However, this disables Spotlight search functionality for the drive. Restarting Restarting the Mac can temporarily allow for safe ejection, but this …