Umount & Clean your NTFS/exFAT partition from macOS using Python

My external hard drive with tons of 💩.

Sometimes I think I'm the one who has problems with the NTFS/exFAT partition on macOS. I have to unmount and clean it, because exFAT is the file system I use on a Raspberry Pi acting as NAS using the great DietPi OS.

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exFAT because is one of the file system that is compatible with macOS, Windows and Linux. Eject the hard drive is not enough, so I had to make a python script code that help me on that. So here it is:

import subprocess
import os

def main():
    volumes = subprocess.run(['mount'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).stdout.decode('utf-8').split('\n')

    for volume in volumes:
        if 'on /Volumes/' in volume and 'nodev' in volume:
            volume_name = volume.split()[2]
            clean_volume(f"{volume_name}/pelis" if os.path.isdir(f"{volume_name}/movies") else f"{volume_name}")

            subprocess.run(["diskutil", "unmountDisk", f"{volume_name}"])

def clean_volume(volume_name):
    print(f"\nFound: {volume_name}. Cleaning...")
    subprocess.run(["rm", "-rf", f"{volume_name}/.Trashes {volume_name}/.fseventsd {volume_name}/.Spotlight-V100"])
    subprocess.run(["find", volume_name, "-type", "f", "-name", "._*", "-depth", "-delete"])
    subprocess.run(["find", volume_name, "-type", "f", "-name", ".DS*", "-depth", "-delete"])


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

The code is pretty simple. It uses the subprocess module to run terminal commands and the os module to check if a directory exists. The main function runs the following commands:

• subprocess.run(['mount'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).stdout.decode('utf-8').split('\n'): This command runs the mount command in the terminal, which save in a variable all volumes mounted on the system. The output is decoded into a string and split into lines, and looped through each one.

• if 'on /Volumes/' in volume and 'nodev' in volume: This conditional checks if the current line from the mount command is a volume under /Volumes and if it's a nodev volume, which is a type of volume that is not associated with any device.

• clean_volume(f"{volume_name}/pelis" if os.path.isdir(f"{volume_name}/pelis") else f"{volume_name}"): This line calls the clean_volume function on the volume. If the volume has a directory named movies, that directory is cleaned. If not, the entire volume is cleaned.

• subprocess.run(["diskutil", "unmountDisk", f"{volume_name}"]): This command unmounts the volume from the system.

The clean_volume function runs several commands to clean the volume:

• subprocess.run(["rm", "-rf", f"{volume_name}/.Trashes {volume_name}/.fseventsd {volume_name}/.Spotlight-V100"]): This command removes several directories that macOS uses to store system and cache files.

• subprocess.run(["find", volume_name, "-type", "f", "-name", "._*", "-depth", "-delete"]): This command finds and deletes all files beginning with ._, which are files created by macOS to store file metadata on filesystems that do not support file metadata in the same way as macOS.

• subprocess.run(["find", volume_name, "-type", "f", "-name", ".DS*", "-depth", "-delete"]): This command finds and deletes all files beginning with .DS, (same as ._).

I hope it helps you!