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peanutismint

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 4, 2007
437
9
Cardiff, UK
I keep a USB hard drive full of videos and other media connected to my macbook at all times. When the time comes to move the machine to another location, I obviously have to properly eject the drive; to do so I need to open a finder window, click the eject button on the drive, wait for it to eject etc...

I'm just wondering if there's a quicker way to do this, like an 'eject' icon that sits in the taskbar, or even a process that runs in the background and lets me use the CD eject key on the keyboard to eject all discs and drives?? (as I don't often use CDs or DVDs anyway.....)

I realise this is a bit of a big ask to avoid a reasonably simple procedure, but I'm lazy like that; plus i like the idea of using technology to make my life all the lazier.

:)
 
What'd be nice, is if we could modify the Eject button on the keyboard.

So if you're holding down Ctrl when you press it, it ejects the most recently mounted drive, etc.

...Maybe this will get me back into programming....
 
You can just create your own workflow/app/service with automator. Use the "get specified items" (this would be all the drives connected) and then "eject disk".
 
You can just create your own workflow/app/service with automator. Use the "get specified items" (this would be all the drives connected) and then "eject disk".

Could I make the 'eject' key do this? Or would it mean editing some deep OS X kernel info? Cause I really dont have that kinda skill! :)

czeluff I like your thinkin!! Does this sound doable??
 
I keep a USB hard drive full of videos and other media connected to my macbook at all times. When the time comes to move the machine to another location, I obviously have to properly eject the drive; to do so I need to open a finder window, click the eject button on the drive, wait for it to eject etc...

I'm just wondering if there's a quicker way to do this,...
Dockables has what you need, among other things (like lock screen). I've been using Dockables apps for ages, in combination with LaunchBar.
 
Dockables has what you need, among other things (like lock screen). I've been using Dockables apps for ages, in combination with LaunchBar.

Hmm sounds interesting....will give it a try!

While I'm on the subject........does anybody know of any app that will allow me to set various functions of my macbook like volume and brightness at the same time and store them as 'presets'?? For instance.... every night when I want to fall asleep watching movies on my external display, I have to up my system volume to a level loud enough to be properly processed by my fullscreen media app (Boxee) and also set things like screen brightness to 0%.... again, just me being lazy!!

Any ideas??
 
If you have your mounted disk appear on the desktop, you can just select them all.. and drag to trash. This will Eject them. (Trash turns into an eject icon).
You could also just press cmd+E.

Doesn't do exactly what you want, but a little faster than opening a finder window and doing each individually.
 
Yes, MarcoPolo can do that based on parameters like time and connected devices or running apps.

Oh - cool! Will give it a shot!!

Vprime, that's a good idea but as i don't have my external drives mount on my desktop I'd still need to open a finder window. This Dockables thing seems to work well, but I'd much rather not have to lose valuable dock space to an icon - czeluff's idea to modify the action of the eject key is still my favourite potential solution!! :)
 
...This Dockables thing seems to work well, but I'd much rather not have to lose valuable dock space to an icon - czeluff's idea to modify the action of the eject key is still my favourite potential solution!! :)

You don't have to use your dock. Just use Spotlight to launch the Dockables you want to use (or use LaunchBar, or QuickSilver).

I don't use the dock for anything. The only icons that ever show in it are the ones of open apps, and I have auto-hide turned on anyway.
 
I never was a fan of QuickSilver, maybe due to me not fully understanding it, thus I recommended Alfred. I'll have a look at LaunchBar though.
I used QS until it broke in Snow Leopard. Switched to LaunchBar and love it. I do everything with it and would feel like a gimp trying to use Mac OS without it. The Dock is a waste of screen real estate, IMHO. I put that into hiding within a month of getting a Mac.

As an example of a great LaunchBar feature:
With a Finder window open and focused, hitting Command-space-g-t opens Terminal with the prompt open to that folder.

ScreenCastsOnline has two free episodes on LaunchBar (#223, 225).
 
If you have your mounted disk appear on the desktop, you can just select them all.. and drag to trash. This will Eject them. (Trash turns into an eject icon).
You could also just press cmd+E.

Doesn't do exactly what you want, but a little faster than opening a finder window and doing each individually.

Right clicking also allows for a quick eject.
 
What I've done is I have created an Automator workflow that is saved as an app. From there I use Quicksilver to run the app, and it ejects the drives for me. It's probably quicker to drag to the trash or highlight and click Cmd+E, but running an Automator app through Quicksilver is just easier for me.
 
Right click, select Eject. Holding down the Option key if the drive is partitioned, and you want to eject all of them.

I agree. Right-clicking on the drive's icon doesn't seem like it takes a long time. The icon should be on the Desktop when the USB drive is mounted. Unless you have hundreds of icons cluttering up your desktop it should be extremely easy and quick to do.

All this extra stuff seems like overkill.
 
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