Ejector Gives the Vestigial Eject Key a Reason to Exist

Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2019/02/26/ejector-gives-the-useless-eject-key-a-reason-to-exist/

Dave DeLong’s new Ejector app reappropriates the Eject key to eject any kind of mounted volume and adds an Eject button to the Touch Bar.

Ten bucks? Mountain.app is only $6 and I thought that was kind of pricey. I think you can link it to the Eject key, if you really need a hotkey, but the menu bar widget is good enough.

Semulov is free, and does the same thing (and a bit more, I believe). This is the app I use to replace the Eject key.

I use the Eject key for only one thing: Putting my Mac mini to sleep (via Command-Option-Eject).

I can’t think of anything else that I’d use it for. I don’t even use it to open/close the tray of the external DVD burner attached to the mini; I use the Eject menu bar item for that.

To unmount volumes, I usually right-click them and choose "Eject ".

Hmm, I guess I’ll just save the $13.28 ($CDN converted at today’s rate) for something else (beer?).

Semulov looks like a neat little utility, but it doesn’t remap the Eject key as far as I can see (and in my testing on an old aluminum MacBook). What Semulov does is provide a way of ejecting a disk from the menu bar, like Apple’s Eject menu extra. It’s a bit fancier than Apple’s, so if you like the Eject menu extra, give Semulov a try.

I’ve been using unDock for a few years. It’s worth a look!

https://flyingpapersoftware.com/

Pro: It’s only $2 on the Mac app store, and it still works on my MacBook Air running High Sierra.
Con: It treats my microSD card not as an SD card but as an external drive and so ejects it along with the other drives that are attached no matter how I set its preferences.

Still, it’s pretty handy for a lazy guy whose Mac regularly has several volumes attached while at work.

I kept wondering why the key was considered vestigial even though I rarely use it. Then I remembered, I still use DVDs and CDs. I have back-up disks from the Lombard era that still work. Nothing else seems to have lasted that long.

Interesting! What discs do you still use? I have stacks of them in the closet, but can’t remember the last time (like 5+ years) I needed to use one, apart from a mix-tape music CD that a friend sent me recently (and that didn’t work in anything but an old boombox anyway).

Now I use Verbatim DVD-R silver 50 on a spindle 94852. The oldest of those is 15 years. I don’t use CDs any more but the old ones were Memorex, TDK, IBM - always stored in a jewel box or plastic sleeve in a box. None ever just lie around to get physically damaged. We just had more commercial disks I bought of Babylon 5 fail and I had to buy a new set. I think they fail because of the dual layer and inexpensive disk source. Washing disks often solves problems since even fingerprints can cause a failed read.

I forgot, don’t fill the disks all the way full. I shoot for about 90%.

Yes, that was a typo… I didn’t mean “map,” I meant replace. My original post updated.