External Drives Failing to Eject Properly After macOS Sequoia Update

After upgrading to macOS Sequoia, I encountered a frustrating issue with external drives that used to work flawlessly. Whether it’s an external hard drive or a thumb drive, the problem remains the same: the drives won’t eject properly because the system claims something is using them. I’ve tried everything—logging out, shutting down the Mac, and even powering down completely—but nothing resolves the issue except force ejecting the drives, which isn’t ideal.

I should say that, occasionally, restarting the Mac allows me to eject the drive within the first moments after the restart. This suggests that something in the boot process is interfering with the ability to safely eject drives.

Force ejecting a drive is not a good idea because it can lead to data corruption or loss. In this article, I will offer two fixes to help resolve the issue. When a drive is force ejected, any files still in use or being written to the drive might be incomplete or damaged. Additionally, the drive’s file system could become corrupted, making the drive unusable until it is repaired or reformatted. This makes it critical to find a proper solution to the issue.

No matter the type, all external USB drives fail to eject properly and require a force eject. This includes:

• USB-C drives
• USB-A drives
• All drives formatted as APFS

Fix 1: Exclude the Drive from Spotlight Search

Spotlight indexing can prevent a drive from being safely ejected. To exclude the drive from Spotlight search:

1. Open System Settings.
2. Navigate to Spotlight > Search Privacy (the button located in the bottom-right corner of the window).
3. Click the + button and add the external drive to the exclusion list.
4. Try ejecting the drive again.

Fix 2: Check for fsck Process in Activity Monitor

Sometimes, background processes like fsck (File System Consistency Check) can prevent a drive from ejecting. To address this:

1. Open Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder in Applications.
2. Go to View > All Processes to ensure all running processes are visible.
3. Sort the processes by Name for easier navigation.
4. Look for a process named fsck. If it is running, it might be holding onto the drive.
5. Select the fsck process and click the X (Stop) button in the toolbar to force quit it.
6. Attempt to eject the drive again.

Related articles:

• How to Rename a USB Drive in macOS
• How to Format an External Hard Drive to Use with Mac