Then, just wait until the drive disappears from your desktop before pulling it out. To eject drives using the right-click method, simply right-click on the drive you want to remove, and click on the Eject “” button. When you have a media drive connected to your Mac, it will typically show up on your Desktop unless you’ve specifically configured your Mac not to show drives on your Desktop. There are multiple ways to eject media drives such as SD cards, external hard drives, and USB flash drives from your Mac, so you should really get used to using one of the methods we’re about to show you rather than getting comfortable with just pulling the drive out of its plug when you’re done using it.

How to properly eject media drives from your Mac Your Mac will give you an error message saying that the disk was not removed properly. When you fail to eject media drives safely, as in you remove it before ejecting it, you risk corrupting the files on that external drive and losing your data. Every time you connect an external peripheral to your Mac, such as an SD card, an external hard drive, or a USB flash drive to transfer files, you should safely eject it when you’re finished using it.

How to get icon for hard drive on mac