SafePull for Mac
A menu-bar companion for Mac creatives that watches external-drive activity and tells you, in plain English, exactly when it's safe to unplug—and decodes any macOS disk alert the moment it pops up.
Photographers and videographers backing up footage to external SSDs
- Live 'safe to unplug' status for every connected drive, based on active read/write activity
- Plain-language explanations of macOS disk alerts (Not Ejected Properly, Disk Not Readable, etc.) with one-click fixes
- Per-drive usage timeline showing which apps are still touching a drive before you yank it
- Optional gentle nudge when it detects a drive has been idle and 'looks forgotten'
The Bombich article confirms what Mac users have known for years: the 'Disk Not Ejected Properly' alert is confusing and often wrong, and creatives are the ones losing real work (RAW files, footage) to ambiguous warnings.
The cited HN source is weak (8 points, 1 comment) and Bombich's piece is a blog article, not a viral demand spike; however, long-running Apple Discussions threads and the existence of multiple paid utilities (Jettison, Ejectify) confirm a persistent, real pain point among Mac users.Disk Not Ejected Properly -- AGAIN AGAIN … - Apple Community ↗"Disk Not Ejected Properly": What It Actually Means ↗
The 'safe eject' menu-bar niche is already crowded with Ejectify (€6.99, open-source), Jettison (long-running commercial), EjectBar, and MountMate — none of which have been decisively defeated, so SafePull's differentiator (live I/O monitoring + plain-English alert decoding) must clearly stand out.Stop "Disk Not Ejected Properly" Notifications on Mac | Ejectify ↗Jettison - St. Clair Soft ↗EjectBar: Unmount disks fast App - App Store ↗
Proven willingness to pay at low one-time prices: Ejectify sells for €6.99 direct-to-consumer and Jettison has sustained a commercial product for years; the creative persona losing RAW/footage files can justify a modest paid utility, though TAM is small.Stop "Disk Not Ejected Properly" Notifications on Mac | Ejectify ↗Jettison - St. Clair Soft ↗
External SSDs for backup aren't going away for photographers/videographers handling multi-TB footage, and Apple shows no signs of clarifying disk alerts (Bombich confirms years of confusion), so the problem persists across macOS versions."Disk Not Ejected Properly": What It Actually Means ↗Best Mac Backup Software for Video Editors and Photographers (2026) ↗
Buildable using public macOS APIs (DiskArbitration, FSEvents, IOKit), but requires nontrivial macOS systems expertise and, as Ejectify demonstrates, Apple's sandboxing forces direct sale rather than App Store distribution, adding friction.Stop "Disk Not Ejected Properly" Notifications on Mac | Ejectify ↗GitHub - homielab/mountmate ↗