MacMembraneThere are peels everywhere…

Awhile back I sold my old MacBook to a friend and offered a quick crash course in moving from Windows to Mac. Of course, I also offered free tech support should she need it, expecting few calls. I checked in with her after a few weeks to make sure everything was running smoothly. It was, excepting one curiosity: along side iPhoto, Safari and other Apple apps in her dock were what appeared to be several Disk Images. I’ve read about first time users mistakenly doing this, but I had never actually seen it before. She was one of the mythical first time users.

Installing applications on the Mac is so easy that it’s almost deceptive for new users. Although some apps do have a free standing installation dialog, the majority are housed simply on disk images and need only be dragged into your applications folder. The final part of installation, however, is apparently where new users get confused: you need to eject the disk image once your app is installed. Here are a few ways you can do it.

Drag the Drag the Disk Image to the Trash

This is the most straight forward and therefore the easiest way for new users to eject disk images, as it will be familiar to every user who drags files to the trash can to delete them. Click on and begin to drag your mounted disk image and you’ll see the trash icon in your dock turn into an eject symbol. Simply drop the disk image on the symbol and your disk will be ejected. I’m not sure how solid the metaphor is here, but it’s a handy technique once you know the trick.

Eject the Image from the Sidebar in Finder

You can eject disk images directly from the Finder. You may have noticed that many applications, when their install disk image is mounted, will present you with a single window with the application icon inside it. To install the app, just drag it from this pane to your Applications folder. But this pane itself is actually a Finder window with the sidebar hidden. To eject the mounted image from within the pane itself, you’ll first have to expand the Finder window to normal view. To do so, click on the little pill shaped button in the top right corner of the pane and all your familiar folder shortcuts will appear in the left hand panel. Under the ‘Devices’ listing (at the top) you’ll see your mounted image with an eject button beside it. Click the symbol and your disk will eject.

Select the Image and Eject it With Command + E

If you’re partial to getting things done via the keyboard, you can simply select your disk image on the Desktop and hit Command + E. Despite my keyboard-centric style of computing, I didn’t know about this one until recently. Hopefully, it will be new to a few of you reading this as well.

Eject Images From the Menubar with Semulov

Lastly, you can eject your disk images using the menu bar utility Semulov. Semulov gives you a live count of all your mounted images and lets you eject them one at a time or all at once. Unlike the previous Command + E method, Semulov is most suited to users who always have one hand on the mouse. If you can spare a little room on your menu bar, Semulov makes ejecting disk images quick and easy. It also supports Growl notifications to let you know what is happening.

Note: I am having some trouble finding a download for Semulov. But if you click on this link the application will download (it’s a direct download link). You can read more about Semulov on MacUpdate.

It’s dead easy to install software on a Mac. Deceptively easy. Hopefully this write up helps a few people out. For all Apple’s focus on ease of use, perhaps they should make the necessity to eject disk images more clear with a pop up message or alert of some kind.

Did I miss your favorite way to eject disk images? Let me know in the comments.