Hide one specific external drive on desktop?

[carbontune]

Does anyone know of a way to hide one external drive from the desktop? I still want to see other external drives appear on the desktop when I plug them in, but I have one drive that is kind of permanent now so I don't need to see its icon.

 

[Fishrrman]

I keep at least seven "drive icons" mounted on my desktop at all times.
One gets used to it.

There is a small free app named "Semulov" that can be used to dismount and mount connected drives at will (puts an icon in the menu bar).
Not sure if it's still available, but might be worth investigating.

Note:
I have no idea if Semulov works with APFS (if you're using it).
I use only HFS+ here.

 

[carbontune]

I don't want to unmount the drive, I just want to hide it's icon. If I attach a new external drive to the Mac then I want it's icon to appear on the desktop. As this one drive that I'm talking about is kind of a permanent part of my Mac, I don't need to see it's icon on the desktop.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I don't want to unmount the drive, I just want to hide it's icon."

A quick search in google revealed at least one way it could be done for a folder.
The same process might work with an icon.

But...
If you can't "see it" to open it, how will you "reach it"?
Just wondering.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Is is a “Mac” formatted disk?

 

[carbontune]

Yes, it’s an APFS formatted external SSD. I still want to be able to see it in Finder, just not on the desktop. I know there’s a way to set it’s Hidden property but then it vanishes from Finder too so i would always have to search for it using /Volumes/...

 

[Fishrrman]

Does the icon really "take up that much space" on your desktop?
Why not find an icon you like looking at, and "paste it over" the icon of the drive?

If you make it invisible to the finder, how are you going to -access it- "through the finder" (which can't see it) when you need to do that?

Aside:
Think your desktop has too many icons?
You ought to see MY desktop!

 

[Partron22]

I wrote this to toggle drive visibility of individual drives back in 2015.
AppleScript
Still works on High Sierra
Paste the code into Script editor.
Enter the name of the drive you want disappeared.
Run.
The Drive name will still show in open and save dialogs, but not on desktop.
Drive will remain mounted.

-- Toggle BU Drive Visibility
-- BP 2015
-- You must manually target the drives by inserting the names below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

set drivename to "Tethys (TM)" -- **** Set this to the name of the drive you want to act on. ****
doit(drivename)



do shell script "killall Finder" -- Restart the Finder to show changed visibility This is not necessary as long as I toggle the Finder's vis prefs, but may be in future.

return



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


on doit(drivename)
    set quoteddrivename to quoted form of drivename
    try
        set attribs to (do shell script "GetFileInfo -a /Volumes/" & quoteddrivename) as text
    on error
        beep (1)
        return
    end try
  
    try
        considering case
            if attribs contains "v" then
                do shell script "SetFile -a V /Volumes/" & quoteddrivename with administrator privileges
            else
                do shell script "SetFile -a v /Volumes/" & quoteddrivename with administrator privileges
            end if
        end considering
    on error
        beep (1)
        return
    end try
end doit

 

[carbontune]

Thanks @Partron22. Is your script toggling the visibility attribute?

 

[ignatius345]

Does the icon really "take up that much space" on your desktop?
Why not find an icon you like looking at, and "paste it over" the icon of the drive?

If you make it invisible to the finder, how are you going to -access it- "through the finder" (which can't see it) when you need to do that?

Aside:
Think your desktop has too many icons?
You ought to see MY desktop!

You could also take a blank PNG image and paste it in over the icon -- then you'd be left with just the name of the drive, which hopefully offends the eye somewhat less.

 

[Partron22]

Thanks @Partron22. Is your script toggling the visibility attribute?

Yes.
If you put the drive on another Mac it will still be invisible.

 

[Fishrrman]

I keep 7-10 "drive icons" visible on my desktop at all times, doesn't bother me.

In addition, I keep about 40-50 -other icons- there, too!

 

[rpmurray]

Easiest way is to go to Finder Preferences and uncheck External Disks in the General section.

 

[Partron22]

Easiest way is to go to Finder Preferences and uncheck External Disks in the General section.

I've got several externals, including SSD boot.
I use the script to hide the slow internal Time Machine partition.

 

[captainhulk]

I can't get this to work with Monterey. Is it possible to work with this mac os?

thanks.

 

[jkw4338]

Make alias's of all the drives you want to see for your desktop. Then turn off external drives in finder.

 

[Stout]

I can't get this to work with Monterey. Is it possible to work with this mac os?

thanks.

This works in Monterey.

the only way to do this is to hide it from finder completely, not just from the desktop. (It can remain in the sidebar though). to do that run the following terminal command

chflags hidden /volumes/"drive name"

put the drive name in the command. KEEP the quotes. then log out/in and the drive should be hidden from finder and the desktop.

To reverse the effect change "hidden" to "nohidden" in the command.

Another option is to hide all drives from the desktop and put aliases to the ones you do want there back on the desktop. however all new external drive you attach to the computer will be hidden from the desktop too unless you make aliases for them as well.