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MountMate – Manage External Drives from your Mac Menu Bar

MountMate is a utility that allows you to mount and unmount external drives directly from the macOS menu bar.

Download for macOS

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MountMate is a small macOS menu bar utility for people who keep external drives connected but do not always want them active. It gives you quick control over mounting and unmounting storage devices without opening Disk Utility or using the command line.

Overview

MountMate lives in the macOS menu bar and shows the state of connected external drives. From there, you can mount, unmount, and check available storage with a lightweight native interface.

Motivation

As a Mac user with an external 4TB HDD connected 24/7, I found that macOS would frequently spin up the drive for background tasks. This caused unnecessary noise, system lag, and mechanical wear on the drive.

After searching for a solution, I found that existing tools were either overly technical (shell scripts), slow to use (Disk Utility), or contained more features than I needed. I built MountMate as a simple, native utility to solve this specific problem.

Highlights

  • Menu bar control: Mount and unmount external drives without leaving your current app.
  • Status overview: See connected drives and whether each one is mounted.
  • Storage details: Check free space at a glance before moving files.
  • Native macOS build: Uses system APIs for a lightweight, energy-conscious utility.
  • Private and offline: Runs entirely on your Mac and does not send drive data anywhere.

Who It Helps

  • External HDD users who want fewer unwanted spin-ups.
  • Mac mini and desktop setups with drives connected throughout the day.
  • Anyone who prefers one-click drive control over Disk Utility or shell commands.

Screenshots

MountMate Light Mode MountMate Dark Mode

Installation

Manual Installation

  1. Download the latest `.dmg` release.
  2. Open the .dmg file.
  3. Drag MountMate.app into the Applications folder.
  4. Eject the installer disk image.
  5. Launch MountMate from your Applications folder.

First-Time Use on macOS

  • If macOS warns you that MountMate is from an unidentified developer, go to:
    System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Feedback and Support

MountMate was created to solve a specific workflow issue, and I hope it is useful for others. If you have suggestions or encounter an issue, feel free to reach out.

Source Code | Report an Issue | Support this project