A question about "Relaunch Finder"

asa - 12:25am Feb 4, 2010 PST
Guest User

Thanks to TidBITS where I read about it years ago, I often use
"Relaunch Finder" -- pressing Option and Control while clicking on the
Finder icon and choosing Relaunch.

This is after using an encrypted disk image to protect a file on my
iMac G5 (10.4.11). A sparse disk image is on the desktop and to close
out the AES-protected file I go to Finder and click in the upper left
box to unmount the sparse disk image, but often I get a message saying
"The disk is in use and could not be ejected" and suggesting I quit
apps. That never works -- only Relaunch does. I'd be lost without it.

Yet TidBITS aside, I've never seen any mention of this action, not in
Apple discussions or Pogue's Missing Manual, so what's it do and how
does it work? (Maybe it also does other clever things I don't know
about.)

Has this problem been fixed in system 10.5 -- or when I move up, will
I still need Relaunch and be able to use it? Would really like to
know . . . .

Asa

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kevinv (apparently) - Feb 8, 2010 2:57 pm (#1 Total: 2)

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Posts: 1408

Re: A question about "Relaunch Finder"

On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 23:25:06 -0800, asa wrote:
> This is after using an encrypted disk image to protect a file on my
> iMac G5 (10.4.11). A sparse disk image is on the desktop and to close
> out the AES-protected file I go to Finder and click in the upper left
> box to unmount the sparse disk image, but often I get a message saying
> "The disk is in use and could not be ejected" and suggesting I quit
> apps. That never works -- only Relaunch does. I'd be lost without it.

I've been using encrypted disk images for years. I have 2 mounted right
now. The only time I see this is when there really is a program running
that has a file in the image still open. If you don't mind using the
Terminal window you can open terminal and type:

lsof | grep -i "DiskName"

where "DiskName" is the name of the disk as it appears on your desktop.

Note that on my system one of the applications that has files on an
image open is the Finder because I have windows open that show the
contents of the disk. I need to close those windows prior to ejecting
the disk (I believe this is no longer the case in 10.6, Finder closes
the window for you, but I'm not 100% certain.)

Also I usually empty the trash before ejecting the disk.

Kevin

franconi (apparently) - Feb 9, 2010 11:03 am (#2 Total: 2)

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Posts: 11

Re: A question about "Relaunch Finder"

You can use the "What's Open" utility:
<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/whatsopen.html>
cheers
--e.

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A question about "Relaunch Finder"

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