Finder says your external drive is still in use, but it does not tell you which process is responsible. A terminal, development server or file watcher may still be holding it open after you close the window you were working in.

We built SafeEject to make that easier to investigate. It is a free, open-source macOS utility with a local browser dashboard and a command-line interface.

Demo mode with sample disks and processes.

See the process and the reason

SafeEject uses lsof to identify processes holding a volume, then explains what it finds in plain language. A shell may have its working directory on the disk, a watcher may be reading a folder, or an application may have an open database.

It also shows process ancestry where available, helping you connect a background process to the terminal or agent that started it.

Choose an appropriate next step

The suggested action depends on the reason. For a shell working directory, changing to another folder may be enough.…