Eject all hard drives

2021-04-02 12:30:05.529Z

I'm trying to eject all attached hard drives (for example when I'm wanting to grab my laptop and unplug it from the multiple USB docks and attached hard drives etc).

This is what I have so far, but it doesn't seem to work reliably. Sometimes it does nothing, sometimes it ejects one or two drives and then I need to trigger it again to eject a few more, and there's always one pesky USB hard drive that it refuses to eject.

I'm trying to get something that I trigger once, and it ejects all the hard drives, repeating if necessary.

Do you have any suggestions?


// Eject all ejectable media

sf.system.exec({
commandLine: `diskutil eject /Volumes/*`
});

// Eject all hard drives not in use

sf.system.exec({
commandLine: `diskutil unmountDisk /Volumes/*`
});

Solved in post #14, click to view

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19 replies

Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris

2021-04-02 12:55:06.422Z

You might get a better result by getting the names of all attached disks in an array, filtering out your startup disk, then ejecting them one by one in quick succession. Let me see what I can come up with...

Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer
- SoundFlow Team
2021-04-02 13:21:01.140Z
I think there may also be a force option that you may need to specify.
Reply
1. Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer
  SoundFlow Team
  2021-04-02 13:22:14.278Z
  For example:
  
  diskutil unmountDisk force /dev/disk2
  
  Then followed by eject.
  
  But obviously it's important to not force unmount any disk that is actually not movable.
  Reply

In reply toDustin_Harris⬆:

A Andrew Sherman @Andrew_Sherman

2021-04-02 13:30:20.291Z

Thanks for the replies guys,

This is the other script I was using but it didn't seem very efficient or elegant.


sf.directory.open({
    path: "/Volumes/MP-005",
});

sf.ui.finder.menuClick({
    menuPath: ["File","Eject"],
});

sf.directory.open({
    path: "/Volumes/MP-001",
});

sf.ui.finder.menuClick({
    menuPath: ["File","Eject"],
});

sf.directory.open({
    path: "/Volumes/Backblaze_MacEx8TB31044614",
});

sf.ui.finder.menuClick({
    menuPath: ["File","Eject"],
});

sf.directory.open({
    path: "/Volumes/Personal",
});

sf.ui.finder.menuClick({
    menuPath: ["File","Eject"],
});

sf.directory.open({
    path: "/Volumes/Clone-1",
});

sf.ui.finder.menuClick({
    menuPath: ["File","Eject"],
});

sf.directory.open({
    path: "/Volumes/Clone-1\xa0-\xa0Data",
});

sf.ui.finder.menuClick({
    menuPath: ["File","Eject"],
});

sf.keyboard.press({
    keys: "return",
});

Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris

2021-04-02 13:36:39.445Z

here's something I've come up with; it doesn't have the force parameter (yet) as that can be dangerous, but this should unmount any drive whatsoever that isn't internal:

function GetStorageDeviceInfo() {
    let storageDevicesJSON = sf.system.exec({ commandLine: "system_profiler SPStorageDataType -json" }).result
    let storageDevices = JSON.parse(storageDevicesJSON).SPStorageDataType

    let drives = [];

    for (let i = 0; i < storageDevices.length; i++) {
        let obj = {}
        obj.name = storageDevices[i]._name
        obj.bsdName = storageDevices[i].bsd_name
        obj.isInternal = storageDevices[i].physical_drive.is_internal_disk
        drives.push(obj)
    }

    return drives
}

function doEjectDrive(bsdName) {
    let unmountResult = sf.system.exec({ commandLine: `diskutil unmount ${bsdName}` }).result
}

let drives = GetStorageDeviceInfo()

for (let i = 0; i < drives.length; i++) {

    if (drives[i].isInternal === "no") {
        doEjectDrive(drives[i].bsdName)
    }
}

Maybe it's useful?

Reply 4 Likes

Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer
- SoundFlow Team
2021-04-02 13:45:02.193Z
Wow!!!
Reply 1 Like
1. Christian Scheuer @chrscheuer
  SoundFlow Team
  2021-04-02 13:50:56.359Z
  Beautiful code, Dustin. Really impressive.
  Reply 2 Likes
  1. Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris
    2021-04-02 13:51:55.951Z
    That means a ton, coming from you 😍
    
    Reply 1 Like

In reply toDustin_Harris⬆:

Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris

2021-04-02 14:14:20.893Z2021-04-02 19:01:19.335Z

I updated the script a little, a couple of conventions were bugging me :) (edit: refactored yet again)

function GetStorageDeviceInfo() {

    let storageDevicesJSON = sf.system.exec({ commandLine: "system_profiler SPStorageDataType -json" }).result
    let storageDevices = JSON.parse(storageDevicesJSON).SPStorageDataType

    let drives = storageDevices.map(n => ({ name: n._name, bsdName: n.bsd_name, isRemovable: n.physical_drive.is_internal_disk === "no" }))

    return drives
}

function ejectRemovableDrives(drive) {

    if (drive.isRemovable) {

        sf.system.exec({ commandLine: `diskutil unmount ${drive.bsdName}` }).result
    }
}

let drives = GetStorageDeviceInfo();
drives.forEach(ejectRemovableDrives);

Reply 1 LikeSolution

Daniel Perez @daniel_perez

2022-11-05 10:13:37.332Z

could you add a pop for me? drive ejected successfully, but without the need to confirm with "ok" button?

also a second script to mount all connected drives?, with a confirmation pop "all connected drives mounted successfully".

thanks alot!

Daniel Perez @daniel_perez

2022-11-08 16:39:35.605Z

@Dustin_Harris

Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris

2022-11-08 18:26:10.707Z

Hi @daniel_perez
here's a quick one, I don't have time at the moment to do super thorough error handling, so let me know how this works. I'll have to figure out a different way to re-mount unmounted drives as they don't actually show up in the SPStorageDataType JSON data :)

function getStorageDeviceInfo() {
    const storageDevicesJSON = sf.system.exec({ commandLine: "system_profiler SPStorageDataType -json" }).result
    const storageDevices = JSON.parse(storageDevicesJSON).SPStorageDataType
    
    const drives = storageDevices.map(n => ({ name: n._name, bsdName: n.bsd_name, isRemovable: n.physical_drive.is_internal_disk === "no" }))
    return drives
}


/**
* @param {{ isRemovable: boolean; bsdName: string; name: string }} drive
*/
function ejectRemovableDrives(drive) {
    let standardError = null;

    if (drive.isRemovable) {
        standardError = sf.system.exec({ commandLine: `diskutil unmount ${drive.bsdName}` }).standardError
    }

    if (standardError) throw `There was an error unmounting ${drive.name}`;
}


function main() {
    let drives = getStorageDeviceInfo();
    drives.forEach(ejectRemovableDrives);
    log('All removable drives unmounted successfully')
}


main();

A
In reply toAndrew_Sherman⬆:
Andrew Sherman @Andrew_Sherman
2021-04-02 13:47:30.027Z
...rubs eyes in disbelief... that was so fast!

Thanks, Dustin, that works perfectly.
Reply 1 Like
1. Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris
  2021-04-02 13:48:20.236Z
  Oh I'm not THAT fast, I had made something similar to eject drives from a stream deck so I had most of it written already :)
  Reply
  A Andrew Sherman @Andrew_Sherman
  2021-04-02 13:49:45.217Z
  Aah, still it's very impressive!
  
  Reply
  Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris
  2021-04-02 13:50:44.346Z
  I'll take the compliment! :)
  
  Reply
2. In reply toAndrew_Sherman⬆:
  Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris
  2021-04-02 15:10:23.115Z
  Another super handy thing: if you have a drive that won't eject for some reason (the force-eject message pops up) open the terminal window, type lsof <name of the drive, just drag it into the window> and hit enter. It will tell you what applications are still trying to use the drive. 99% of the time it's mds_worker (spotlight) or quickpreview has crashed :)
  Reply 3 Likes
  Ryan DeRemer @Ryan_DeRemer
  2022-06-03 00:25:10.479Z
  @Dustin_Harris I'm curious as to why you named GetStorageDeviceInfo() starting with an uppercase character in stead on camel case. Any specific reason?
  
  Reply
  Dustin Harris @Dustin_Harris
  2022-06-03 00:55:17.022Z
  Oh that was just bad coding. I originally thought functions that returned objects should be capitalized… that was before I learned about Classes :)
  
  Reply 1 Like

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