How do you mount network drives on logon silently?

[seggy]

Never been a big issue before since it's been at most 2-3 shares I've been mounting, but now I'm up to a dozen-plus on most Macs its become kind of a big deal with my screens covered in windows after logon.

I do need to see the icons on the desktop, but I don't want the windows opened when I log into the Mac.

I know there's an Applescript solution but I can't honestly believe there's nothing built into the OS in the intervening 15-plus years for something this basic. Or is that the only way?

 

[frou]

If they've been dragged into "System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items", I think you can check the "Hide" checkbox for each one.

 

[seggy]

If they've been dragged into "System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items", I think you can check the "Hide" checkbox for each one.

It doesn't appear to be a thing for Finder related stuff I'm afraid - wouldn't be asking if that worked.

 

[Taz Mangus]

It doesn't appear to be a thing for Finder related stuff I'm afraid - wouldn't be asking if that worked.

That is how I have done it in the past, put the network drive in my login items and checked the hide item box. You certainly can drag finder items to your login items.

How to automatically mount network drives on macOS

Need more disk space on your Mac or iMac mini? Mount a network drive!

www.imore.com

 

[seggy]

That is how I have done it in the past, put the network drive in my login items and checked the hide item box. You certainly can drag finder items to your login items.

How to automatically mount network drives on macOS

Need more disk space on your Mac or iMac mini? Mount a network drive!

www.imore.com

Oh it will mount the drive, the problem is that it brings a window up. Hide will not work.

 

[MacGizmo]

I've noticed the window opening issue when mounting external servers, dating back to as long as I can remember. "Hiding" via System Prefs does nothing for me either. I've just gotten used to hitting Command + Option + W to close all windows at once.

I suppose I could set the Finder to open all windows in Tabs so I only have to close one window, but I hate tabs in the Finder, so I don't use the feature.

 

[seggy]

...so are we concluded that the only option is to script it?

Very tiresome.

 

[chown33]

Can you link to the AppleScript solution you mention in post #1?

Can you explain why a script would be "tiresome"?

Someone more familiar with scripts or scripting might be able to make a more appealing solution, if we could look at what you're referring to.

 

[seggy]

Can you link to the AppleScript solution you mention in post #1?

Can you explain why a script would be "tiresome"?

Someone more familiar with scripts or scripting might be able to make a more appealing solution, if we could look at what you're referring to.

Don't have a specific link - the process itself is totally straightforward Applescript: Literally "mount volume". I've just got to rinse and repeat it a lot when I've set up the drive mounting already.

 

[chown33]

AppleScript has looping. You can create a list of the volumes you want to mount, as either inline AS code, or by reading it from a file of a specific name in a specific place. Once you have the names in a list, it's straightforward to loop over every item in the list, and "mount volume" on it.

If you don't already have a list of the volume names, you can AppleScript it:

tell application "System Events" to get name of every disk

The result is a list with every currently mounted disk, plus maybe a few extra mount-points that you'll want to manually remove.

The shell command 'mount' may also be useful.

Folks in the Programming Forum can suggest other ideas, or advise on the exact AppleScript syntax to use.

If you want, I can move this thread there, just ask here in a reply. I advise moving the thread over creating a new one, because I'd probably just merge them anyway.

 

[seggy]

Thanks, but I'm good - familiar with all that.

As I said, I just can't believe the incredibly basic nature of MacOS's GUI networking features in particular, and that's even before we get to performance - I was just hoping I missed something.