Unplugging usb's

Hi All,

Still setting up my Mac and have a question. On a PC you have to click "Safe to remove hardware" before unplugging anything connected by a USB. Do you have to do something with a Mac or just unplug it?

Thanks,

Lucy Goose

I know you should eject hard drives, usb drives, and memory cards. I'm not sure about printers and such.

This is a SanDisk multiple card reader. Not sure what to do.

If you are concerned about it grab the drive image and drag it to the waste basket and it will eject the drive.
On my Macbook Pro I then typically close the lid to unpower the USB port and pull out the device (though I don't think you actually have to do that).

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Lucy Goose said:

This is a SanDisk multiple card reader. Not sure what to do.

Click to expand...

Lucy Goose: Surely the Sandisk shows on the desktop like an external hdd when a card is inserted, you should eject it first before unplugging.

For any external drives, all you need to do is drag its icon from the desktop down to where the trash usually is. The trash icon becomes an eject icon. You can also eject it from the Finder.

The dragging the icon to Trash or selecting Eject under the File menu is the same as the Windows "safe to Remover Hardware' option.

Like Windows, simply unplugging may well cause corruption.

Nope it's not on the desktop like a cd or dvd would be that is why I am asking.

A card reader will not show anything on the desktop until you plug in a card to be read, at that point you will see a Media icon that you can use to copy files from/to and when you're done, drag that media to the trash to properly unmount the card. If you don't have any card inserted into the card reader, you can safely pull it out..

Regards

Thank you!

Look for the drive in Finder (when there is a card inserted) and to the right you will see a small triangle pointing up. Click that and it ejects the external drive, USB stick, memory card (or CD for that matter). You can also right click and select "Eject" which is similar to the Windows way you mention.

You also may need to set the preferences in Finder to show external disks on the desktop. With the Finder as the open application, choose Preferences from the Finder menu on the top left of the menu bar. From there are options to check off boxes for which things you want shown on your desktop. Make sure the External Drives option is checked.